The Bottom Line
An all in one resource for good beer lovers.
Pros
- Great concept
- Well designed tasting notes pages
Cons
- A little bulky
Description
- Handy, all in one beer tasters journal
- Includes the complete BJCP style guidelines
- Enough blank pages for 82 separate beer tastings
Guide Review - Beer Book Review - The Beer Journal
The concept behind this book is delightfully simple: provide a well laid out format to record tasting notes and an exhaustive description of beer styles. That's really about all that there is to it.
But it is in this simplicity that the book shines. Without much clutter to complicate the business of tasting beer, it encourages you to get right to business. The style guidelines, which are a reprint from the 2004 Beer Judge Certification Program, provide a quick and easy reference for any question of beer style minutia that may come up during a tasting. Roughly, the style guidelines section takes up about half of the book. Most of the second half is devoted to beer tasting pages with blanks to record almost every relevant fact about the beer in front of you, including a section for follow up tastings.
There is also a brief section about tasting beer and beer glass styles as well as a few more record sections covering things such as beer festivals, brewery tours and the beer cellar.
The book is 226 pages long and 6X9 inches. This is not something that I would normally point out but as a beer taster's notebook it is important. Personally I like something a lot smaller that can fit in my pocket. Anything bigger can just be a pain and, as often as not, I'll leave it at home.
That being said, I'm not sure where The Beer Journal could be trimmed. Whether or not you obsess over style restrictions, it is incredibly handy to have them right in the journal - if for no other reason than to settle arguments. And the tasting notes section seems about right in length. So, although I do find the size bothersome, I'm not sure how else this concept could be packaged.
But it is in this simplicity that the book shines. Without much clutter to complicate the business of tasting beer, it encourages you to get right to business. The style guidelines, which are a reprint from the 2004 Beer Judge Certification Program, provide a quick and easy reference for any question of beer style minutia that may come up during a tasting. Roughly, the style guidelines section takes up about half of the book. Most of the second half is devoted to beer tasting pages with blanks to record almost every relevant fact about the beer in front of you, including a section for follow up tastings.
There is also a brief section about tasting beer and beer glass styles as well as a few more record sections covering things such as beer festivals, brewery tours and the beer cellar.
The book is 226 pages long and 6X9 inches. This is not something that I would normally point out but as a beer taster's notebook it is important. Personally I like something a lot smaller that can fit in my pocket. Anything bigger can just be a pain and, as often as not, I'll leave it at home.
That being said, I'm not sure where The Beer Journal could be trimmed. Whether or not you obsess over style restrictions, it is incredibly handy to have them right in the journal - if for no other reason than to settle arguments. And the tasting notes section seems about right in length. So, although I do find the size bothersome, I'm not sure how else this concept could be packaged.
