On his first night at Stanford-in-Oxford, Ben Myers was dragged on a pub crawl. "Here were 50 jet-lagged college students, some of whom were under 21 and weren't even allowed to drink 12 hours before," says Myers, '92. "It was every British person's nightmare." Then and there, the group split into those who liked British brews and those who didn't.
Myers loved them. After graduation, he dashed back to England to learn more. A year later, he returned to the United States and took up freelance beer writing.
Now he has written Ben Myers' Best American Beers: An Enthusiast's Guide to the Most Distinctive Craft Brews of the U.S. and Canada (CLB International, 1999; $9.99). To produce the pint-sized guide, Myers and a team of writers sipped their way through 100 craft breweries. In addition to profiling each brewer, the book recommends specific suds in the manner of a wine guide ("complex, fruity, with citrus-hop notes") and provides a glossary for those who can't tell an ale from a lager.
The book, Myers says, should "get people excited about beer and expand their beer horizons." Not to mention their waistlines.
