European Beer Guide
Beer and Brewing Links

Introduction
Here are my links to other beer pages. I won't claim that this is a definitive list of the web's very best. It's just stuff that has interested, amused or informed me. I've tried to include only those which contain real information, i.e are not just a series of links to other pages.

I know that I should update it more than I do. But I do have other demands on my time that prevent me from surfing 16 hours a day. If your life lacks such restrictions, feel free to email me the results of year research. Or if you think your own page is totally groovy.

The links are ordered mostly, but not entirely, by country. I'm sure you're intelligent enough to work out which aren't. Usually, the country of origin determines where I place a link. Some pages concentrate exclusively on a single country. Others discuss more general beer-related topics, in varying degrees of depth and accuracy. (A word of warning: people, such as myself, writing about a country they may only have visited for 45 minutes while changing trains, are apt to talk utter bollocks.)

I'm glad the time I spent commuting wasn't totally wasted. The languages I tought myself to read on crappy, slam-door Southern region trains and countless other forms of (mostly geriatric) public transport have started to come in dead handy. You may have missed out on a prestigious London Transport education yourself. Which is why I've marked links to pages not in English like this: In German only. (Though obviously if the page is in Swedish, it'll say "In Swedish only". At least if I remembered to add a warning. I may have missed a couple.) I assume that you can read English. If you can't, I admire your persistence in getting this far.

Index
Beer and Brewing Resources
General
Collectors
Beer books
Beer tours
Austria
Benelux
Canada
Czech Republic
Denmark
Finland
France
Germany
Norway
Spain
Sweden
UK
Other
Beer Consumer Organisations
Brewers' Organisations
Commercial Organisations



Beer and Brewing Resources

  • "The Brewer" by William Loftus, 1863: Scans of "The Brewer" are still available on this internet archive site. A detailed look at mid-19th century brewing, including chapters on IPA and Porter brewing. http://web.archive.org/web/20021216013241/ http://www.beerengineer.com/Historical/TheBrewer_1863/
    http://web.archive.org/web/*sr_41nr_10/http://beerengineer.com/*
    Only the individual page scans (not the zip files of 10 pages) seem to be available.
  • Transcripts from the History of Brewing: JB Sumner's very useful transcriptions of important brewing texts:
    • Accum, FC (1820), A Treatise on Adulterations of Food, and Culinary Poisons, section “Adulteration of Beer” (69K).
    • ‘Bickerdyke, John’ (1886), The Curiosities of Ale & Beer: an Entertaining History, chapter “Porter and Stout” (32K).
    • Child, Samuel (1794?), Every Man His Own Brewer, complete, UNVERIFIED (47K).
    • Cobbett, William (1850), Cottage Economy, sections relating to beer-brewing (78K).
    • Rees’ Cyclopaedia (1819), entry “Porter” (55K). Includes a thorough and revealing description of operations at Whitbread’s colossal, steam-driven porter brewery. Thanks to Martyn Cornell, I now have a scan of the plate accompanying this entry (129K). It’s much larger than the average screen size, so you’ll probably need to make a print copy to refer to.
    Accum has some very intersting analyses of samples of Porter and Stout from around 1810-1919. And a good explanation of the difference between Porter and Entire.
  • Encyclopedia Brittanica 1911: entry for Beer: A very informative article about British beer just before WW I. Has tables detailing the strengths of different British Ales and Continental Lagers.
  • The London and Country Brewer, 1736: A glimpse into brewing in the early 18th century. Fascinating that they were already using isinglass to fine beer.
  • "Oeconomischen Encyclopädie“ of 1773: A great source of information on a range of subjects, it has quite a lot about beer. They reckon the best beer comes from Bohemia and Britain, and gets worse the further away you get. Only in German, I'm afraid.


General Beer Links

  • Passport to the Pub: A guide to British pub etiquette: A fascinating online book describe the unwritten rules of British pubs. Despite the book's claimed parochial scope, much of the behaviour described can be observed in Prague, Bamberg, Antwerp or Amsterdam.
    Here's a piece of great advice :
    "Whether you are male or female, and whatever the sex or social background of your native companions, the words “It’s my round – what are you having?” will always be appreciated as a friendly gesture. This line may not be in your phrase book, but it is one of the most useful sentences in the English language."
    Published by the Social Issues Research Centre. (An impressive-sounding organisation I [sort of] hope is just a few blokes down a pub.)
  • Central Europe's New Breweries: Paul Harrop's excellent and comprehensive guide to brewpubs and micros in Europe's brewing heartland. It covers Germany, Austria, Czech Republic, Denmark, Slovenia, and Switzerland.
  • Modern Drunkard Magazine: Hey, kids, try to drink responsibly.
  • Lose that Beer Gut without Giving up Beer: A complete homebrew guide to losing that beer gut without giving up beer. Wonderful concept. Brilliant Churchill quote.
  • Beer Tutor: beer ratings, beer forum, news articles and much more. I love the quotes from famous drunkards at the top of the page.
  • Real Beer Page: You've probably already seen 2,000 links to this, but it is an excellent online beer magazine. Lots of interesting stuff.
  • Rate Beer An excellent site with descriptions - and ratings, of course - of hundreds of thousands of beers.
  • Celebrator Beer News: Homepage of the American magazine Celebrator Beer News. A very useful feature is the search of back issues, which they have online.
  • Beertown Homepage of the Association of Brewers, an organisation representing American home- and micro-brewers.
  • All About Beer Magazine: The website of one of the USA's leading beer publications. It has extensive links to other beer resources.
  • American Brewery History Page: All sorts of interesting historical information about American breweries.
  • BeerBooks.Com: An online shop specialising in beer books.
  • Regional Beer Guides. Pub guides to a variety of European towns and regions.
  • Michael Jackson's Beer Hunter Page: Beer travel, brewery and beer reviews, beer styles and articles about every aspect of beer from the world's leading writer on the subject.
  • The Beer Church: A page dedicated to Californian craft beer. It includes a page for ordering Californian beer online,
  • Global Beer Network Homepage The site of an American importer of Belgian beers. It contains some commercial blurbs about what they are flogging but, to its credit, does also include useful general information about Belgium and its beer.
  • World Pub Guide: as the name of the site says, a guide to pubs in various place around the world, including London, Cornwall, Antwerp, Brussels, Paris, Lille, New York, San Franciso, Portland and many more.
  • White Beer Travels: a site stuffed with useful information for beer drinkers who travel. It includes detailed guides to many beer destinations in Europe.
  • Beer 4 U: a site with hundreds of beer links.



Collectors' Pages



Beer Book Sellers

  • Beer Inn Print A UK site with hundreds of beer books, postcards and posters.
  • Beer Books An extensive American site selling beer books, magazines, T-shirts and posters.
  • Liquid Literature Beer, wine and whisky books. It has a selection of reprinted old brewing manuals.
  • Raudins Publishing An American publisher that issues reprints of 18th and 19th brewing texts.
  • De Bier Boom A Dutch site selling a range of beer books, with an emphasis on the Benelux.


Beer Tours

  • Bier-Mania! A beer tour company based close the Dutch/Belgian/German borders.
  • White Beer Travels John White offers tours to most of Europe´s interesting beer destinations. His site also provies much useful information for the independent beer traveller.
  • Czech Beer Tours Let Libor Vojácek guide you around some of the Czech Rpeublic´s smaller and more interesting breweries.
  • Amsterdam Beer Tours The easiest way to experience the best of Amsterdam's pubs: let someone guide you to them. It's a tough job, but one I'm prepared to undertake.


Austria

  • Biere und Brauereien Oberösterreichs Guide to the breweries in Oberösterreich. In German only.
  • Brauereiführer A guide to all the breweries in Austria. In German only.
  • Lokale in Wien Guide to pubs and restaurants in Vienna. Not particularly beer orientated, but has lots of places listed. In German only.
  • Conrad Seidl Homepage of Conrad Seidl, the foremost Austrian beer writer. Knows what he's talking about (unlike some).
  • Kampagne für Gutes Bier Homepage of an Austrian beer consumer's group.
  • Netbeer Austrian online beer magazine. It includes articles about the central European beer scene and plenty of links.
  • Brauereienverband Österrreich Homepage of the Austrian brewers' association. Lists all the Austrian breweries. In German only.
  • Bierführer Österreich Extensive listings of beer pubs and breweries in Austria. In German only.

Benelux

  • PINTernet Homepage of PINT, the Dutch beer consumers' organisation and full of useful information about the Dutch beer scene.
  • Benelux Biergids Guide to beer in Benelux by the legendary Peter Crombecq. Definitive, complete and accurate. One of the top sites.
  • Trappist Beer site Dedicated to the 6 Trappist monasteries - has very good images of old labels and beermats.
  • De Biersite Lots of stuff on Dutch breweries and beer pubs. In Dutch only.
  • Zeeuwse bierbrouwerijen info on breweries in Zeeland. In Dutch only.
  • Ed's BierpaginaMostly links, but a few homebrew recipes, too. In Dutch only.
  • Boersma's Beer PageA huge list of links to beer pages. Not a great deal of original content, but a good place to find links.
  • Zuipen in Utrecht Guide to pubs in Utrecht.
  • Amsterdamse Kroegen Encyclopedie! Homepage of the book which lists every pub in Amsterdam.In Dutch only.

Canada

  • BiereMAGCanadian online beer magazine. In French only.
  • The Canadian Beer IndexThe Real Beer Page's Canadian Beer Index, the mostcomplete source of information about Canadian beer, breweries and brewpubs (or so they claim).

Czech Republic

Denmark

Finland


France

  • French Beer. The web version of "The Beers of France" and "The Beers of Wallonia" books. Up-to-date and very informative. An excellent site.
  • le Monde de la BIEREA French beer page which currently seems to be mostly under construction.
  • The Paris Beer GuideA fairly extensive guide to beer pubs in Paris. Has most of the information necessary for a pub crawl: except the opening times.

Germany


Norway


Spain


Sweden


United Kingdom

  • Great British Beer Someone has spent an awful lot of time putting together this page. It's a searchable database of British breweries and their beers.
  • Beer Gutter Press The site of CAMRA Newark (my hometown) branch. Ha s a useful list of all the pubs ever to have existed in the town.
  • London's Virtual Real Ale Pub GuideAs the title says, a guide to real ale pubs in London.

Other Countries


Beer Consumer Organisations


Brewer's Organisations


Commercial Organisations

  • Thirstys The homepage of a specialist beermat and coaster manufacturer.
  • BestBeer will deliver Belgian beer to your door.





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© Ron Pattinson 1996 - 2006

All articles and photos on these pages (unless otherwise stated) are property of Ron Pattinson. If you would like permission to reproduce either on your own site or in a book, please contact me first.