An invaluable guide to Britain's great ale heritage, this book explores the rural roots of brewing when farmers and country breweries took the barley and hops from the fields to make ales for families, farm-workers, villages and towns. It highlights the long-established breweries as well as the micro-breweries which have arrived over the last twenty years, that combine to supply a rich diversity of beers to Britain's discerning drinkers.
Country breweries are not always as you might expect - they range from tiny one-room sheds such as Borve in Grampian, to magnificent historic buildings such as the thatched-roofed Blue Anchor, a fifteenth-century Cornish brewery.
Includes 130 colour illustrations.
