No book on craft beer can hope to be definitive; the landscape changes even before the last letter has been typed. But as a snapshot of the excitement, gall and vitality of an emerging phenomenon, or a glimpse of the faces behind it – what they think and say and do and, most of all perhaps, the beers that they brew – a guide, such as this, goes a long way. Of course, all beers are made somewhere, frequently in places you’ve only heard of. As much as the brews and the people making craft beer, this book is about conveying a sense of place – a mapping, as it were, of where to find the perfect pint, frequently poured for you by the very people who brewed it.

Facing the inevitable, change, we might be mindful of the words of Michael Jackson: ’It is the unusual which requires preservation, not the commonplace.’