I listened to Patrick McGovern's Ancient Brews book as an audio book and finished it a couple of days ago. I'd finished the first half of the book before heading out for the East Coast, and came back to finish the remaining listening.
The book gives an overview of history's most 'famous' ancient beverages as discovered by Prof. McGovern and his collaborators, and then narrates through the team's attempts to recreate them. This is a tale of the lab's work with Dogfish Head brewery.
What I liked about the book: it's detailed, the author is clearly passionate, gives a clean context and history behind each brew, and the motivation and steps in their attempts to recreating it. It's not a 'clean' scientific look at a drink, but a passionate brewer's understanding of a topic of their experience. The fact that so many local U.S brewers were involved in recreating several of these drinks is quite important. I got to learn a lot about drinks from various parts of the world.
What I didn't like and had to resist being too dismissive: all of the brews are beers, by that German definition of beer, use yeasts and barley and hops, and don't explore 'alternative' methods of brewing, using koji or qu or marcha really. All the recipes are basically ways to make the standard beer more interesting, which is a respectable task that I don't have an issue with, but not what the title claims, and not what the expectations are set to. And the author admits that, due to regulations, all the beer drinks sold must have so and so. Which is fine, in which case the title of the book, or the marketing and expectation-setting should have been different. In that sense it was a little disappointing. I have absolutely no doubt Dr. McGovern has brewed 'non-beer' brews in interesting ways and tested them and done experiments with all the wild techniques. This book wasn't about those experiences.
7.5 Out of ten. Maybe he's written other books that I should...listen to?
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