Pic(k) of the Week: Perusing a Belgian beer list (at a Belgian beer book signing).

CAMRA Books —the publishing arm of the Campaign for Real Ale— has just published the 7th edition of the Good Beer Guide to Belgium, written by Tim Webb and Joe Stange. It's available for sale in the U.K., but not yet in the U.S. ... except at book signings arranged over here by co-author Stange.

He, and his wife Kelly, were recently in Washington, D.C. to do just that, at Churchkey, one of that city's new wave of good-beer bars.

In the photo, Mr. Stange and a good-Belgian-beer fan stand just to the right of a stack of his books, perusing a Belgian beer draft list. Mrs. Stange, to the left, had already made up her mind.

Kelly is an officer with the Foreign Agricultural Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture; Joe has served in U.S. embassies. His research is avocation accompanying vocation. At his blog The Thirsty Pilgrim, he writes on beers Belgian and not, at which, he's never at a loss for pithily-worded opinions. The book's co-author, Tim Webb, is British.

The list of beers on draft that day —thirty-five of them— was itself a special thing, as collated and presented by Greg Engert, Churchkey's Beer Director. Engert oversees not only that bar & restaurant, but sixteen other restaurants and emporia in Washington, D.C. and northern Virginia, including a brewpub in the city. Engert contributed a short essay for the book, on "What do I eat with that?"

And, oh, yes. I did buy my own copy of Good Beer Guide to Belgium there and then.

Stange autographed and inscribed it, finding little common cause between poorly adulterated cask-conditioned ale, as found here, stateside (a point of mutual indignation), and properly adulterated good beer from Belgium (an obvious point of mutual admiration).

Please enjoy, from possibly the original home of beer with cocoa puffs and dingleberries... (with coriander).

Indeed! I can recommend Good Beer Guide to Belgium, with or without immediate travel plans.

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• Follow Joe Stange on Twitter: @Thirsty_Pilgrim.
• More photos from the event: here.
• This post has been edited to properly reflect the Stange's diplomatic status.
• Pic(k) of the Week: one in a weekly series of personal photos, often posted on Saturdays, and often, but not always, with a good fermentable as a subject. Camera: Olympus Pen E-PL1.
• Commercial reproduction requires explicit permission, as per Creative Commons.