If, like Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, you enjoy beer, you might consider reading A Natural History of Beer, by Rob DeSalle and Ian Tattersall, but be prepared for a deep dive to the bottom of their glass.
A sequel to their earlier 2015 work, A Natural History of Wine, this exhaustively researched tome explores, in great and sometimes plodding detail, the entire universe and history of the drink, but you’ll do yourself a favor by ensuring that you’re part of their target audience. When I say this book is a “deep dive” I’m talking about depths approaching the Mariana Trench.
If your primary interest is in the actual history of humanity’s brewing and consuming habits, the first four chapters of the book, composing part one, are a feast for the mind. They take the reader on a journey of exploration covering not only the origins and evolution of brewing as a science and industry, but also society’s adoration and rejection of booze through celebrations and taboos. It contains keen observations on our species’ curious relationship with beer in all its frothy-or-flat, black-or-golden glory. The the first chapter fascinatingly reflects on why we drink at all.
The authors demonstrate not only an understanding of the subject but also an appreciation of the complicated and sometimes dangerous relationship people have with alcohol. In one fascinating passage, they note that all of the great apes can become intoxicated drinking fermented sugars. But they distinguish man in this category by noting that we possess “the kind of cognition that not only allows us to predict the future consequences of our actions, but also gives us an awareness of our impending mortality.” It sounds like an excellent excuse to have another beer, just in case you were searching for one.
By the time the reader gets to chapter five, however, this book takes a turn toward the most obscure corners of the kingdom of science geeks and nerds. But that shouldn’t make you think it does so with the enjoyable frivolity of the “Big Bang Theory.” The authors are a microbiologist and an anthropologist, so esoterica is to be expected, but DeSalle and Tattersall go perhaps too far, slogging their way through university-level scientific textbooks, covering material that would leave some Ph.D. candidates gasping for a drink.
Part two delves into the primary components of beer, as such a book clearly should. But, really, an entire chapter dedicated to water? There are local qualities and components to water that affect the taste of beer. That is interesting enough. But the authors start by going back billions of years to how water first arrived on Earth (by comets apparently) and then probe into its molecular nature and how that makes it an ideal solvent.
The chapter on fermentation doesn’t limit itself to an explanation of how yeast consumes sugars to produce alcohol. It includes diagrams of how starch molecules get cut into single-sugar carbon rings. Another chapter about “Beer and the Senses,” deals with people’s reactions to various aspects of beer drinking. For example, it explores the color of beer, a suitable topic, but includes a lengthy explanation of how the opsins, rods, and cones in your eyes allow you to know what hue you’re looking at. Another chapter painstakingly describes how the stirrup impacts the cochlea in your inner ear, allowing you to appreciate the hiss of a beer bottle opening.
A Natural History of Beer is thorough in the extreme, and its research is beyond reproach. For this, the authors deserve compliments, and if you’re into scientific trivia, this book is a delight.
But if your interests run mainly toward the specific history of brewing and the various aspects of understanding and enjoying a quality bottle of beer, this scholarly work is rather a dry beverage.
Jazz Shaw is the weekend editor at Hot Air. His personal relationship with beer is restricted by his ongoing romance with the science of martinis. [email protected]. On Twitter, @jazzshaw.
