“Brew Britannia - The Strange Rebirth Of British Beer” by Jessica Boak & Ray Bailey (2014 Aurum Press UK, softcover, 5.3”x 8.5”, 304 pages)
England’s history with beer goes back hundreds of years. Britain is known the world over as a major player in the world’s craft beer scene, creating great brews for generations. But just as industrial beer corporations took over America for so many years, a similar consolidation happened to England. However, just within the last 50 years, England has “taken back the pint”, and this book details that struggle.
Authors and beer bloggers Boak and Bailey chronicle the beginnings of the notorious “CAMRA (Campaign For Real Ale)”, as well as the writers, beer critics, curmudgeons, and cranks that stubbornly refused to have corporate interests water down their ales (and lagers). We get names, places, and hometown breweries that put their own hearts and wallets into creating real beer for real people, and a pretty well comprehensive history of the wheres, hows, whos, and whys behind England’s re-emergence as a major brewing destination of the world. There’s not much as far as illustrations or photos to illustrate this journey, but the book reads well, and most certainly has a place among any legitimate beer book collection. All said, it’s a great piece of British brewing history, and a great document of a story that needed to be told.
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