Beer, Food, and Flavor: A Guide to Tasting, Pairing, and the Culture of Craft Beer

by Schuyler Schultz, Peter Zien (Foreword)

“Yes, great beer can change your life,” writes chef Schuyler Schultz in Beer, Food, and Flavor . Here is your authoritative guide to exploring the diverse array of flavors found in craft beer—and the joys of pairing those flavors with great food to transform everyday meals into culinary events. Armed with the precise tasting techniques and pairing strategies offered inside, participating in the growing craft beer community is now easier than ever. Beer, Food, and Flavor will enable you to learn about the top craft breweries in your region, seek out new beer styles and specialty brews with confidence, create innovative menus, and pair craft beer with fine food, whether at home or while dining out.

Genres: Beer, Cooking, Cookbooks, Nonfiction, Food and Drink

304 pages, Hardcover

First published August 1, 2012

Reviews

[Jouni Koskinen]

The title is partially misleading. I got the impression that this is a book about first and foremost about beer & food tasting and pairing, but out of 300+ pages there's about 100-120 on food & pairing. The contents, especially on cheeses, is good, but the style and attitude is pretty damn pretentious and snobby.

The "Culture"-part eats up more than half of the book. There's a description/history of AleSmith (that feels almost like a brewery brochure) under the guise of "Philosophy of Craft Beer" and then 19 other US craft breweries introduced similarly. Photo's of Peter Zien's imperial stout homebrew-recipe at the end was fun!

Overall ok, but the attitude and writing bugs me a bit. The book is partly written like a snob who just got into beer and has this mentality toward craft beer like it's the second coming. But the food pairing stuff is pretty good, so might be worth it.

[Janet]

Way too detailed for my taste and attention, but how lovely that the author put so much love and soul into the topic. In my book, craft beer tastes good with anything. ;-)

[James Kirby]

The first few chapters give an excellent overview of beer & food pairing principles and provide a strong foundation for building a vocabulary for tasting notes. Curiously, there's also a detailed explanation of cheese varieties and how to pair these with beer.

Unfortunately, the rest of the book feels like an advertisement for Alesmith and self-congratulatory kudos for the author's cooking prowess. Reading this cover-to-cover was a mistake... I'd recommend skipping the latter two-thirds.

I did appreciate the note at the end about the online BJCP resources, though. I've already printed myself a copy of style guidelines and took their practice test.. I may even be on the road to becoming a certified beer judge. :D

[Chris]

Solid book, well worth pulling from a bargain bin.

Good coffee table book.

[Jm Rollins]

A good foundation for anyone looking to understand pairing food with drinks (not just beer).

[Andreas]

As many other reviewers pointed out already. Only part of the book is dedicated to beer-food pairing while the rest is a summary of different breweries in the us. The pairing part about cheese is nice.

[Joe]

The first section of this book discussing food and beer is fantastic. It's the best I've read on the subject so far. It's nice that it's missing the these-are-all-the-types-of-beer section that these books all have, which is important, but I've read it several times already. The book then shifts gears into a brewers are a combination of superman, Jesus, and Mother Teresa section. I liked reading about all the different breweries and brewers and their stories, but it seemed out of place in what I thought was a beer and food book. Lost the fifth star for that.

[Jenny]

There was more info than I needed since I'm not a home brewer but the book still offered plenty for me to learn from. It is very well organized and attractively presented.

[Ronan Anthony O'Reilly]

A lovely book!