I can’t wait to get home tonight & crack it open.
I quickly thumbed through a bit…Wow!
This book is packed with information.
http://www.amazon.com/Oxford-Companion-Beer-ebook/dp/B005MLIQCQ
looks cool. hope it’s good!
You had an e-book delivered by mail? :o
Looks interesting.
I’ve read critical comments on-line related to the accuracy of some of the sections.
Some of the criticisms seem a bit over-zealous, particularly as the Oxford Companion covers a great deal of territory, but nonetheless you’d like it to be accurate.
Most of the criticisms I’ve seen can be found at the Shut Up About Barclay Perkins blog.
My apologies…
Hardcover version was delivered.
If one is presenting information as history, I don’t think one can be over-zealous. As such, it seems to me that most of the criticisms of the OCB tend to be pretty well founded. I certainly like the concept of the book and commend the massive effort that went into bringing it to print; but by the same token I don’t think it’s unreasonable at all to expect a book bearing the Oxford brand name to be a bit more careful regarding what it presents as ‘fact’.
In any case, I’m supposing that there will surely be corrections/amendments when another edition rolls out…at least I would hope so, given how they’ve been ‘called out’ on some of the info, not to mention how the landscape of brewing itself is still changing.
Meantime, there’s this helpful and useful work-in-progress (link below) that addesses some of the more glaring inaccuracies and which, down the line, will hopefully help to simplify the job of making the second edition more accurate.
As it stands now, the wiki referenced below takes the high road and serves to help in the correction of the more glaring errors, rather than creating more controversey. And, I think it serves as a very good companion to the Companion:
Perhaps over zealous is the wrong term. However, I came away with the sense that some of the criticism was (or seemed) perhaps a bit more harsh than necessary. As you stated, this was (is?) a massive undertaking. It’s also sort of a mile wide and an inch deep, if you will.
I also didn’t want to throw too much cold water all over anyone’s joy at a new book.
Clearly there are some glaring inaccuracies. The section on Old Ales is one that I found particularly so.
I agree that Oxford should use more care and I’m glad to see the wiki as a helpful response in trying to correct and improve the companion.
All that aside, I’m sure it’s an enjoyable read and that many of us here will scratch our heads when we come across the goofy sections and know that something’s not right.