Brewers Publications and American Sours!

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Oldsock

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After more than two years of writing, I just signed a contract for Brewers Publications to publish my book about American sour beers (most likely in 2015)! I wanted to thank the people who have posted both questions and answers on this board. I've been linked to some interesting studies I’ve then cited, and gotten a fresh look at the questions people brewing their first batches of sour beer often have.

My blog has a draft table of contents (comments appreciated), a list of the people I’ve talked to already, and more details: http://www.themadfermentationist.com/2013/04/my-book-has-publisher.html
 
I'm really happy to hear that this book is being written and that's it by you! Are you happy with the projected release date or do you want the HBT forces to push it to come out sooner, I know I'd like sooner!
 
I am surprised you did not self publish. You probably have as much if not more connection with the "sour community" than the publisher. It is not like it is a book on dogs that competes with a zillion other books and need press. No matter what most every sour beer making homebrewer will find out about the book quickly as the subject has so very few books available and you are quite well known as far as the subject.
 
Self publishing would have allowed updates to the book much more quickly. This would have been great considering how fast american sours are evolving (just a thought). I am still ecstatic this is going to be available for us, keep up the good work!
 
I went back and forth, but in the end I decided that for my first book it was worth it to work with people who really knew what they were doing. I probably will get a similar amount of money in the end (larger sales, smaller cut), but I think the book will be better, and hopefully it will raise my profile (although to what end is completely unclear). It will also be cool to have the book in homebrewing stores, libraries, and the few remaining brick-and-mortar book stores.

If I’ve got another book in me I’ll already have a track record and more name recognition if I want to self publish. We’ll see!
 
Good luck brother. I know you have inspired a lot of us here to brew something new. I look forward to adding this to my shelf.
 
Please see if they will e-publish it too. I'm annoyed that so many of the home brewing books I want are not available for nook or kindle...all the crazy engineering discussed on this site you'd expect them to figure out we are no Luddites...

Hey sorry to rant on your thread...grats on the book I'll absolutely buy it for my nook soon as I can ;)

Oh and ps, love the blog, great sourdough bread recipes there.
 
Please see if they will e-publish it too. I'm annoyed that so many of the home brewing books I want are not available for nook or kindle...all the crazy engineering discussed on this site you'd expect them to figure out we are no Luddites...

Hey sorry to rant on your thread...grats on the book I'll absolutely buy it for my nook soon as I can ;)

Oh and ps, love the blog, great sourdough bread recipes there.

No worries there, one reason the contract took so long is that we were waiting for a new clause about ebook publication. Cheers!
 
I will definitely get myself a copy. I really enjoy the blog. How much is history vs homebrew application?
 
I really enjoy the blog. How much is history vs homebrew application?

I enjoy history, stories, human interest etc. but what I am really crazy about are process specifics. How many oak spirals does Ithaca add to Brute? What is the pitching rate for Surly Five? Where does the Bruery source their Brett strains? How many pounds of cherries does Russian River add to Supplication? The one thing I didn’t go to aggressively for was malt/hop recipe details, because I don’t find them to be that important.

I wanted to present all of the information I gathered (both practical and scientific) to give brewers options. There is no single “right” answer to any aspect of brewing sour beers. My goal was to allow people to pick which brewery’s house character they prefer, and then provide all of the details so they could do something similar at home (or in their own brewery).
 
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