Roger Protz

Spoilt for choice

Since the first World Beer Guide 20 years ago, brewing has changed massively, with new interest in beer in the most unlikely places

If, as Harold Wilson famously

said, a week is a long time in politics, then 20 years in brewing is an eternity. Last year, when I published my World Beer Guide, I was struck by how different the book was to one I had written with the same title 20 years ago.

The earlier title appeared before IPA took the world by storm. Back then, porter and stout were enjoying a small revival, but other ancient beer styles remained locked away in old recipe books.

While brewers throughout the world admired the great beers of Belgium, few – if any – attempted to mimic such styles as lambic and saison. But now, first in the US and then in Britain, there are many examples of beers called sour, while the onceobscure saison from Wallonia has become something of a minor craze.

I didn’t include Italy in my first world guide as there was little to write about, with Moretti and Peroni dominating the scene. Today, there are some 900 breweries there, some tiny but a few, such as Baladin and Lambrate, growing to national status. There’s even a Trappist brewery at a Rome monastery where monks add eucalyptus to their beer.

I was helped in my research by a French book, Le Guide Hachette des Bières by Élisabeth Pierre, a splendid tome that lists 300 French breweries. Two decades ago, I wrote exclusively about beers in the far north of France, with obvious influence from neighbouring Belgium. But now there are breweries the length and breadth of the country, with one, Des Gabariers in the Charente, blending beer with Cognac.

The French tend to be sniffy about food and drink made in other countries, but brewers have looked abroad for inspiration and you will find IPA, pale ale, robust porters and bitter. There’s even a brewery, Brasserie Duplessi, that’s dedicated to Richard the Lionheart, with Richard Coeur de Lion Blanche, Brune, Blonde and Rousse beers (all 5.6 per cent ABV). Richard, as well as king of England, was also the Duke of Normandy, hence the beery connection.

Before Covid struck, I visited Greece

and Turkey, where the beer scene is changing fast. In Greece, Carlsberg and Heineken have a frightening 99 per cent grip on beer sales, but small brewers are offering much-needed choice. Inspiration comes from unexpected quarters: Aggelos Ferous and Alyosha Kampanis have modelled their Mykonos beers on BrewDog, with zany promotions.

On the island of Evia, Sofoklis Panagiotou runs the biggest craft brewery

in the country with Septem Microbrewery. His background is wine and he considers that hops bring as much character to beer as grape varieties do to wine. He is especially keen on the Nelson Sauvin hop with flavours similar to those of Sauvignon grapes. I went to another first, a beer festival in Izmir in Turkey. Efes dominates the country, but small brewers are making a mark. There’s a British influence in Istanbul where expats Philip and Jill Hall run the Bosphorus Brewing Company and ‘I didn’t include Italy in my first world guide as there was little to write about. Today, there are some 900 breweries’ go as far as ‘Burtonising’ their water – adding sulphates – to get the correct flavour for their IPA. Several of the new Turkish breweries make IPA, along with amber, saison and German-style weiss beer. When I compiled my first world guide, there were 2,000 independent breweries in the US. The number has grown to over 8,000 and the choice is stupendous. IPAs can be found in abundance and there are now different interpretations, with New England versions offering a better balance to the savagely bitter West Coast variants. Many brewers are ageing beer in wood for extra character, while genuine lagers mean drinkers never need touch Bud again. One beverage that doesn’t grace my new book comes from Ukraine. Back in the spring, as the country built barricades against the Russian forces, a brewery in Lviv switched from brewing to making Molotov cocktails. One style I hope we won’t need to reproduce here. Roger Protz’s book, World Beer Guide (2021), is on sale from CAMRA’s online book store. Follow him at @RogerProtzBeer