Professor Bamforth teaches an awesome beer and brewing class at UCD. Sadly his book is not as great and entertaining as his lecture. If you are an aspiring brewmaster, find a more in-depth book on beer. If you want to learn how to brew your own beer, find something on the internet. If you want to familiarize yourself with how beer is made and classified, along with impressing your friends at the bars, try this book out - its not that expensive and full of introductory material. The book is a little dated, most of the information about international brewing companies is quite outdated. Still, the general process of making beer hasn't drastically changed much over the past few centuries.

It covers the basics ok and that is it, very low brow. If you are a beginner brewer than use this book!

I read this book, cover to cover in a couple afternoons. Even then it took me that long only because I had to do some other things. I thought this was a very well-written book, and fairly informative. It was nice to have all of this information in one handy little volume, although this is by no means a reference work.

My Likes: This book reads like a museum exhibit at a brewery. I like museums and I like brewerys. The author lets you see some of the more in-depth processes that are not done directly at the brewery, tells you about how the brewery does things and gives you a general feel for how the industry works.

My dislikes: The Author glosses over a lot of stuff. Some things are dealt with in great detail (like the malting process) while some other things are generally passed over (like brewing and sparging). Granted, this may have been because the author did not want the reader to become bored and inundated with things that you can find in just about any home brewing book on the market.

Buy this book IF:
- You are very interested in the business of brewing.
- You are a beer expert and need to own every book about beer.
- You are a homebrewer intellectual who likes to know everything about what you are doing.

Do not buy this book if:
- You are looking for a detailed description of the chemical reactions and biological workings of beer.
- You already own a brewery (or microbrewery)
- You are looking for a book that will help you make better beer.

What can I say I like good beer and I like good books about beer and this is one of them.

From chit chat over anecdotes to some indepth info about beer, its history, the ingredients and the way it is made. You will never look at a pint of beer, whether bought in a bar or brewed it yourself, in the same way.