Beers to try before they die
Nicholas Lezard reviews 300 Beers to Try Before You Die! Yes, still another “before you die” list and still another “best beers” list. Lezard is properly skeptical:
There is much advice these days, many lists shoved in our faces, of experiences we ought to have before we pass away; such is the contemporary secular eschatology. But this (trying the 300 beers) is achievable, at least, or achievable enough; and making an effort to drink your way through this book will also serve to salute the many dedicated, hardworking and inventive people who, in the teeth of a multitude of commercial pressures from faceless, soulless big business, have kept an ancient art alive.
The book has merit because Roger Protz wrote it. “This is a weighty handbook of excellence, written by one of the most knowledgeable people in the field - perhaps the most knowledgeable,” Lezard notes.
He also concludes with an important point: “One subtitle the book could entertain is ‘300 beers to try before they die.’ ”
