Meaning of Beer
THE PRIZE-WINNING BOOK EVERY BEER-LOVER MUST READ
'Tantalising, enlightening and the best reason to raise another glass of beer' Olly Smith
'This is one of the most important books ever written about beer' Mark Dredge
WINNER, BEST DRINK BOOK AT THE FORTNUM & MASON FOOD AND DRINK AWARDS 2025
What's the oldest and most consumed alcoholic beverage on earth? BEER, of course. And it might just be our most important invention.
Since its creation 13,000 years ago, our love of beer has shaped everything from religious ceremonies to advertising, and architecture to bioengineering. The people who built the pyramids were paid in ale, the first fridge was built for beer not food, bacteria was discovered while investigating sour beer, Germany's beer halls hosted Hitler's rise to power, and brewer's yeast may yet be the answer to climate change.
In The Meaning of Beer, award-winning beer writer Jonny Garrett tells the stories of these incredible human moments and inventions, taking readers to some of the best-known beer destinations in the world - Munich and Oktoberfest, Carlsberg Brewery's historic laboratory, St Louis and the home of Budweiser - as well as those lesser-known, from a 5,000 year old brewery in the Egyptian desert to Arctic Svalbard, home to the world's most northerly pub.
Ultimately, this is not a book about how we made beer, but how beer made us.
Jonny Garrett is a multi-award-winning journalist, author and filmmaker. He's best known as the founder of Youtube's Craft Beer Channel, which has over 160,000 subscribers and 13 million views.
He has written four books and his most recent one, A Year in Beer (CAMRA Books, 2021), won the Fortnum & Mason Drinks Book of the Year, British Guild of Food Writers Drinks Book of the Year and British Guild of Beer Writers Book of the Year. He was also voted British Beer Writer of the Year in 2019 and 2022.