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RR 2012/130 The Oxford Companion to Beer Edited by Garrett Oliver Oxford University Press Oxford 2011 xxiii + 920 pp. ISBN 978 0 19 536714 3 £35/$65
Keyword Beer
Review DOI 10.1108/09504121211211433
Oxford University Press has perfected the "reference companion". Other publishers active in the reference sector such as Routledge and Wiley-Blackwell have produced numerous titles labelled "companion", but most of these comprise a series of chapters usually giving a "state-of-the-art" summary of a subject area. Oxford companions on the other hand, are effectively mini-encyclopedias. The general format is an A-Z sequence of entries, most fairly short but some longer, usually penned by various hands, and scholarly in outlook and tone yet accessible to a general readership. Subject coverage is wide and is not confined to traditional "academic" subjects. Recent companions reviewed in these columns range from the long established and perhaps best known The Oxford Companion to English Literature, now in its seventh edition (Birch, 2009) (RR 2010/120), to The Oxford Companion to the Garden (Taylor, 2006) (RR 2007/043). Food and wine have already been covered with The Oxford Companion to Food (Davidson, 2006) (RR 2007/310) and The Oxford Companion to Wine (Robinson, 2006). Now The Oxford Companion to Beer joins the family. Solidly hardbound and sensibly priced like its siblings, it is intended as the "most comprehensive book ever published on the subject of beer" (Preface p. x) and, as with other Oxford companions, clearly has the ambition to be the standard general work of reference on its subject matter.
Somewhat surprisingly, at least from a UK perspective where, rather unfairly, American beer does not have the highest of reputations, this is a companion with a distinct US flavour. Editor in chief Garret Oliver is a foremost authority on beer, author of the award winning book The Brewmaster's Table and brewmaster at the Brooklyn Brewery in New York (which has a one column entry on page 183 of the companion). His advisory board is made up of four Americans, one German and one Englishman. The...