Malt-Worms and a beer book

Martyn Cornell is a blogger on beer in the UK. He nom de blog is Zythophile.

One of his stocks in trade is identifying (and correcting) beery canards. Another is researching British beer styles (and correcting errors of record there).

Cornell blends both pursuits in his newly published ebook— Amber, Gold & Black: The Story of Britain's Great Beers.

I'm having great fun reading it; I've already been disabused of several personally held beer-myths.

I'll post a review soon. In the meantime, here are two amusing quotations:

There enter in, for Drink well brew'd and clear.
For Ales well-colour'd, and stout humming Beer"

A Vade Mecum for Malt-Worms, circa 1718

[A vademecum is a pocket handbook. And Malt-Worms! That's a long-lost euphemism for beer geeks.]

And

If smirking wine be wanted here
There's that which drowns all care, stout beer.

poet Robert Herrick, on a Harvest Home supper, circa 1630