MICHAEL JACKSON’S BEER COMPANION: The World’s Great Beer Styles, Gastronomy, and Traditions ($35.00 hardcover 288 Pages, Second Edition Revised & Updated, 218 full-color illustrations, Running Press, ISBN: 0-7624-0201-6)

Michael Jackson, the world’s most influential writer on beer has spent the last four years traveling the world in his quest to update and revise his award-winning MICHAEL JACKSON’S BEER COMPANION. With more than 50 new, specially commissioned color photographs, 60 new labels, and a revised text this second edition is probably the most comprehensive guide to the world’s finest beers. The blossoming of beer styles in the stores, pubs, and restaurants of America was inspired by Jackson’s writing. Now, in this new edition, Jackson explains the character and uses of each style. There is a beer for every mood, moment or purpose. Eat, drink and be social with the gentle south German Altbier, a Belgian ale, an English bitter or something similar from the New World. Quench your thirst with a wheat beer or Belgian tart ‘red’ Ale such as Rodenbach. Sweeten your palette with a dark lager or mild ale, or one of the creamier stouts, for a ‘pick-me-up’.

CLASSIC STOUT & PORTER by Roger Protz ($16.95, hardcover, 192 pages, color illustrations, index, Prion (Trafalgar Square) ISBN: 1-85375-220-7)

Beer is undergoing a worldwide revival. People are drinking less but they are drinking better quality and the classic styles of stout and porter are part of the new vanguard of award winning connoisseur ales.

This is the first book devoted entirely to stout and porter, from its fascinating history rooted in Dr. Johnson’s London, James Joyce’s Ireland and George Washington’s America to its current renaissance. It is a richly illustrated celebration of the culture of stout, past and present, with everything from literary quotations and songs to cocktails and recipes.

It covers over 300 stouts and porters in a gazetteer of breweries, brew pubs and brews and offers tasting notes and histories of the key brands across the world from arctic Finland to sun baked Nigeria.

BEER OF THE WORLD by Roger Protz ($16.95, hardcover, 224 pages, color illustrations, index, Prion (Trafalgar Square) ISBN: 1-85375-219-3)

The bottled brew has long been the international currency of the beer world, and in the increasingly sophisticated global market it is playing a central role in beer’s worldwide renaissance. Here, Roger Protz brings his opinions and taste buds to bear on hundreds of the world’s finest connoisseur bottled beers helping the fanatic and novice alike to cut through the myriad of choice now available in bars, restaurants and supermarkets across the world.

The selections are drawn from every style and from every corner of the world. Well known brands rub shoulders with little known treasures a Trappist ale with a history stretching back to the Middle Ages next to the latest gem from a microbrewery on the new frontier of American brewing. Brand assessments and tasting notes are accompanied by intriguing histories of the breweries involved and illustrated with hundreds of labels and fascinating pictures.