In 2015, beer sales in the U.S. topped $105 billion, and it wasn’t all coming from Anheuser-Busch and Coors. The craft beer market is bigger and more vibrant than ever. The Brewers Association counted 4,195 brewpubs and microbreweries in operation last year, nearly three times as many as just 10 years before.
Beer—drinking and making it—has never been so popular, and in Beer FAQ: All That’s Left to Know About the World’s Most Celebrated Adult Beverage (October 2016, Backbeat Books, $24.99), Jeff Cioletti, who is the beer editor for FSR, tells the story of how it got that way. He has created a no-nonsense guide to the world of beer, answering many burning questions about the diverse array of styles, ingredients, and international brewing and drinking traditions that drive the world’s most popular adult beverage.
Beer FAQ features insight not only on how it’s made, but how it makes the journey from the brew house floor to the drinker’s glass. Cioletti offers a touch of history, a bit of globetrotting, and a look at the companies and enterprising individuals leading the modern brewing renaissance. He provides readers with a better understanding of not just the many varieties of beers out there, but also the best places to drink them and the best ways to enjoy them, from the ideal packaging to the proper drinking vessels. He also takes a nostalgic look at beer’s evolving role in pop culture—from advertising to television to movies—over the past century.
As Ciolletti writes in his introduction, “There has never been, in the history of the world, a better time to drink a beer.” In that same spirit, there has never been a better time for Beer FAQ.
