Beer For Petes Sake

Pete reflects on his life with beer, and shares everything he knows about beer and brewing. Written for the average person who doesn't know everything about beer, but would love to ask.

In this extraordinary memoir, Peter Barry recounts a life full of misdeeds and misadventures, tough times and unexpected pitfalls, shot through with many magical moments of providence, coincidence, absurdity and sheer good fortune. From a childhood on a hilltop farm – as the landscape of rural Northern England changed forever – to building the legendary Snowy Dam in Australia, from playing gigs in Lancashire village halls to recording albums in Australia and entertaining troops in the Vietnam War, Peter Barry’s long and colourful life has bumped up against history, time after time, in a truly remarkable way. This is the first volume of a story – from 1939 to 1970 – in which the ever-resourceful, ever-hopeful Peter observes the end of an era in England and the start of a new one in Australia, falls in love with the East and, again and again, finds himself in the right spot at just the right time.

For Pete's Sake is a fictionalized, personal, powerful, heart-rending account of a family's move from a small upstate New York town to bustling Worcester, Massachusetts and the many obstacles and challenges that arose from this relocation. It is the story of a husband and father's attempts to atone for the hurt he caused his wife and children.

Discover the underdog story of how America came to dominate beer stylistically in The Audacity of Hops, the first book on American craft beer's history. First published in May 2013, this updated, fully revised edition offers the most thorough picture yet of one of the most interesting and lucrative culinary trends in the US since World War II. This portrait includes the titanic mergers and acquisitions, as well as major milestones and technological advances, that have swept craft beer in just the past few years. Acitelli weaves the story of American craft beer into the tales of trends such as slow food, the rise of the Internet, and the rebirth of America's urban areas. The backgrounds of America's favorite craft brewers, big and small, are here, including often-forgotten heroes from the movement's earliest days, as well as the history of homebrewing since Prohibition. Through it all, he paints an unforgettable portrait of plucky entrepreneurial triumph. This is the "book for the craft beer nerd who thinks he or she already knows the story" (Los Angeles Times), an "excellent history" (Slate) "lovingly told" (Wall Street Journal) for fans of good food and drink in general.

Over the past 40 years craft-brewed beer has exploded in growth. In 1980, a handful of "microbrewery" pioneers launched a revolution that would challenge the dominance of the national brands, Budweiser, Coors, and Miller, and change the way Americans think about, and drink, beer. Today, there are more than 2,700 craft breweries in the United States and another 1,500 are in the works. Their influence is spreading to Europe's great brewing nations, and to countries all over the globe. In The Craft Beer Revolution, Steve Hindy, co-founder of Brooklyn Brewery, tells the inside story of how a band of homebrewers and microbrewers came together to become one of America's great entrepreneurial triumphs. Beginning with Fritz Maytag, scion of the washing machine company, and Jack McAuliffe, a US Navy submariner who developed a passion for real beer while serving in Scotland, Hindy tells the story of hundreds of creative businesses like Deschutes Brewery, New Belgium, Dogfish Head, and Harpoon. He shows how their individual and collective efforts have combined to grab 10 percent of the dollar share of the US beer market. Hindy also explores how Budweiser, Miller, and Coors, all now owned by international conglomerates, are creating their own craft-style beers, the same way major food companies have acquired or created smaller organic labels to court credibility with a new generation of discerning eaters and drinkers. This is a timely and fascinating look at what America's new generation of entrepreneurs can learn from the intrepid pioneering brewers who are transforming the way Americans enjoy this wonderful, inexpensive, storied beverage: beer.

A “fascinating and well-documented social history” of American beer, from the immigrants who invented it to the upstart microbrewers who revived it (Chicago Tribune). Grab a pint and settle in with AmbitiousBrew, the fascinating, first-ever history of American beer. Included here are the stories of ingenious German immigrant entrepreneurs like Frederick Pabst and Adolphus Busch, titans of nineteenth-century industrial brewing who introduced the pleasures of beer gardens to a nation that mostly drank rum and whiskey; the temperance movement (one activist declared that “the worst of all our German enemies are Pabst, Schlitz, Blatz, and Miller”); Prohibition; and the twentieth-century passion for microbrews. Historian Maureen Ogle tells a wonderful tale of the American dream—and the great American brew. “As much a painstakingly researched microcosm of American entrepreneurialism as it is a love letter to the country’s favorite buzz-producing beverage . . . ‘Ambitious Brew’ goes down as brisk and refreshingly as, well, you know.” —New York Post

“The only book you need to understand the world’s most popular beverage. I swear on a stack of these, it’s a thumping good read.”––John Holl, editor of All About Beer Magazine and author of The American Craft Beer Cookbook Imagine sitting in your favorite pub with a friend who happens to be a world-class expert on beer. That’s this book. It covers the history: how we got from gruel-beer to black IPA in 10,000 years. The alchemy: malts, grains, and the miracle of hops. The variety: dozens of styles and hundreds of recommended brews (including suggestions based on your taste preferences), divided into four sections––Ales, Wheat Beers, Lagers, and Tart and Wild Ales––and all described in mouthwatering detail. The curiosity: how to read a Belgian label; the talk of two Budweisers; porter, the first superstyle; and what, exactly, a lager is. The pleasure. Because you don’t merely taste beer, you experience it. Winner of a 2016 IACP Award “Covers a lot of ground, from beer styles and brewing methods to drinking culture past and present. There’s something for beer novices and beer geeks alike.”––Ken Grossman, founder, Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. “Erudite, encyclopedic, and enormously entertaining aren’t words you normally associate with beer, but The Beer Bible is no ordinary beer book. As scinitillating, diverse, and refreshing as man’s oldest alcoholic beverage itself.”––Steve Raichlen, author of Project Smoke and How to Grill

In the 1970s and ’80s, the brewing industry shifted was from large corporate suppliers to smaller, independent “microbrewers,” typified by producers such as the Boston Beer Company and Sierra Nevada Brewing Company. Today, the market is going even smaller—with tiny, independent brewers setting up shop in neighborhood brew houses nationwide, focusing on crafting unique, flavorful brews specifically for their extremely local clientele. The reality is that beer is in the midst of a renaissance in this country, driven by a new class of these dedicated craft “nanobrewers” and growing communities of drinkers looking for something more from their daily brew—something higher-quality, more unique, more local. These microbrewers rent out small spaces or buy industrial equipment to install in their garages. They’re accountants, middle-school teachers, and plumbers who are passionate about beer and who dedicate their free time to producing three or so barrels of their own brew at a time. They sell their bottles to close friends and gift it to family members for birthdays and holidays. They enjoy what they do and they’re proud of their product. What’s it like inside these small-time brewing operations? What happens behind the scenes? What goes into making high-end craft beer on a small scale? True Beer takes an on-the-ground look at the ultra-small side of the craft brewing movement from the inside out by profiling a number of independent American breweries in detail and using that as a jumping-off point to examine the art and science of brewing, the local farmers and providers behind the scenes, the market itself as well as national trends in nanobrewing, and modern craft beer production. Skyhorse Publishing, along with our Good Books and Arcade imprints, is proud to publish a broad range of cookbooks, including books on juicing, grilling, baking, frying, home brewing and winemaking, slow cookers, and cast iron cooking. We’ve been successful with books on gluten-free cooking, vegetarian and vegan cooking, paleo, raw foods, and more. Our list includes French cooking, Swedish cooking, Austrian and German cooking, Cajun cooking, as well as books on jerky, canning and preserving, peanut butter, meatballs, oil and vinegar, bone broth, and more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.