With the huge range of beer books available, I was surprised there were no beer quiz books around.
Last year I was in Stavanger, promoting my book with the publisher – including a beer tasting for people in the local book trade. There was also a short literary quiz, and I got the idea there and then – why not a beer quiz book?
I reached out to follow beer blogger Sammy Myklebust , who jumped right in, and the publisher Vega Forlag was positive.
The bulk of the work was done during the first four months of this year, with e-mail and dropbox as collaboration tools. We met twice, once for a working weekend at my mountain cottage, then for a few hours in Bergen to lay the last pieces of the puzzle.
We decided to divide the book into chapters, with 18 questions in each chapter, divided into three categories according to difficulty. There are 1000 beer questions with a few chapters on other alcohol and drinks without alcohol at the end.
There are chapters on major beer countries, on traditional brewing, on hops, beer festivals, fiction and non-fiction books, beer personalities, “national” beers of various countries, pubs and bars.
I’m quite pleased with the range of questions. We touch upon history, religion, travel, food, home brewing, literature, music, TV series, ethnography, biochemistry, mycology, mythology, linguistics and many other fields.
There was a CAMRA quiz books some years ago, and a Swedish board game. Maybe the market is ripe for versions of this in other countries and languages? If anyone’s interested, get in touch.
Knut Albert's beer blog 