Amber, Gold and Black is the most comprehensive history of British beer in all its variety ever written. Learn all there is to know about the history of the beers Britons have brewed and enjoyed down the centuries: Bitter, Porter, Mild and Stout, IPA, Brown Ale, Burton Ale and Old Ale, Barley Wine and Stingo, Golden Ale, Gale Ale, Honey Ale, White Beer, Heather Ale and Mum. This is a celebration of the depth of our beery heritage, a look at the roots of the styles we enjoy today, as well a...

Explore global beer diversity, from ancient origins to modern innovations across 40+ countries, appealing to both novices and aficionados. Come with us on a beer-fuelled journey crisscrossing the globe, taking in every continent and more than 40 different countries, as we discover the huge range of different brews available today around the world, explore their backstories, take a deep dive into the history of beer, going back 13,000 years to the dawn of civilisation, and come right up to ...

In 1636 the poet and traveller John Taylor wrote, ‘Hertfordshire is a County that surpasseth all other Countries and Counties for making the best malt.’ Much of that malt went by cart or barge to London, but Hertfordshire also has a long tradition of brewing, as well as malting, and the county eventually developed several substantial breweries. These included Benskin’s of Watford, which at one point owned some 640 pubs from Brighton to Cambridge, and even supplied the House of Commons. Tod...

Winner of Beer Book of the Year at the 2016 British Guild of Beer Writers Awards The history of ale and beer is pitted with strange tales. Take the way the RAF made sure British troops received supplies of beer after the D-Day landings in 1944, for example: they filled up the fuel drop-tanks slung below Spitfire fighters with mild and bitter and flew seventy-five gallons at a time over to the makeshift landing strips in Normandy. Then there’s the Great London Beer Flood of 1814, when a gia...