Ian Coutts – författare

The perfect keg. Filled with perfect beer. A symphony of flavors in the mouth. The right blend of sweet and bitter. The fluid in that keg represents a year’s work. Actually brewing it took a few weeks. But to make it truly the perfect keg, Ian Coutts had to go right back to fundamentals. This beer didn’t start with a beer-making kit, which is what most homebrewers use. And it didn’t rely on pre-roasted industrial malt, which is how commercial brewers big and small do it. Coutts made his own malt, aerating wet barley with an aquarium bubbler and blasting it with a hair dryer. Of course, to do that he needed barley. So he grew his own. Hops, too. Yeast, he went out and captured. And that''s it. With this beer, the only additives are knowledge and history. There were plenty of adventures, misadventures, and missteps along the way, but Ian writes about them with humor and aplomb, including his own recipes and those of people he worked with in the brewing process, proving it’s possible to make the perfect keg of wholly natural beer in one year.

Brew North tells the delightful story of Canada's national beverage. Lively and informative, Brew North puts beer lovers front and centre. From cowboys quaffing India pale ale in a western saloon to modern-day beer snobs sipping pints of cask-brewed bitter and commenting on its "chocolate and cigar box bass notes," this is the story of the men--and women--who brewed, served and drank the intoxicating malted beverage. Charming illustrations reveal rustic taverns, Victorian photographs give us that era's opulent saloons, and modern colour shots help us understand the brewing process. The book also illustrates how brewers have long been conscious of marketing and advertising, creating unique bottles and ads, giveaway trays and signs.