A Brief History of Lager: 500 Years Of The World’s Favourite Beer: By Mark Dredge – A Book Review
Written By: The Gnarly Gnome
Photography By: The Gnarly Gnome
I’ll admit it openly. Loudly, in fact. I’m a lover of lager beer. When I started drinking craft beer, it wasn’t always the popular stance, either. Many people associated lager beer with large, macro breweries, so they turned their backs on an entire segment of beer that they viewed as “fizzy yellow crap.”
About The Book
In ‘A Brief History Of Lager’, Mark Dredge takes you from the chilly lagering tunnels of Bavaria to the sprawling industrial breweries of the United States to trace how lager beer evolved, spread, and even dominated.
Page by page, he introduces the people, the science, and the culture that helped make lager the global powerhouse that it is today.
He covers everything from:
- The invention (maybe even unintentional) of cold fermentation.
- The rise of Pilsner and Pale Lager.
- The global beer wars
- Craft beer’s growing love for crispy, tasty lager beer
For beer fans, this book is more than just trivia and a bunch of dates. It connects the dots between what is in your glass and the moments through history that shaped it. Dredge uses stories to illustrate a beverage that we all thought we knew.
Is This Book For You?
If you’re a beer enthusiast, then you should definitely have this on your shelf. If you work behind a bar serving lager beer to drinkers, you owe it to yourself to understand the style a little more deeply.
I’d add that even if you’re just a curious beer drinker who’s tired of being negative towards the most popular beer style. This book might change your tune.
Prove Me Wrong
Get yourself a copy, read it, and then if you’re still not obsessed with lager beer, I’ll admit that I’m wrong. Lager has long been misunderstood, and this is the book that it deserves.
You can get your copy over on Amazon right here (that’s an affiliate link, by the way, it doesn’t cost you any more, but I make a little bit when you make your purchase).