A Great Stocking-Stuffer: Beervana, the Book

It was about ten months ago that I simultaneously celebrated this blog's fifth anniversary and, to celebrate, released a book of the best posts. Sometime after the first of the year, I'll pull the banner ad down and call it a good run. In the meantime, let me flog it for the holiday season. It's ideal for that beer geek in your life! Below is the original post announcing the book, with relevant information and, I hope, teases enough to lure you in to gift buying. Happy holidays!

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And so we arrive at the grand day: this blog's five-year (also, wooden) anniversary. This means Beervana is now eligible to attend kindergarten. Actually, in blog years, it means Beervana is ready for a gold watch and a wistful pat on the back. Only a few beer blogs are older, but none are as creaky or forgetful. Beervana, in short, has aged badly.

What was I saying? Oh right, anniversary. Yes, well, as many of you know, I am a hermit, and so there will be no party. I leave it to the spry youth, Angelo and Ezra for example, to throw anniversary bashes. Instead, I will celebrate in the manner of a blogger-hermit, which is to say in a quixotic fashion: by releasing a collection of the best posts from the blog, bound for all time in the warm, corporeal covers of a book.

A book!

Why, you might ask (as my mom did yesterday), would you bother turning a blog into a book? Good question. Partly because I love books and I thought it would be cool. But also because amid all the crap here, there are actually some good bits. The barley isn't always easy to separate from the chaff, so now you have them, all in one handy, elegant package. Or, to quote from the back cover:

In the past five years, he [sorry, the slug text is in the third person] had written roughly 1,900 posts and over a half million words. This book is a collection of the best of those posts, including:

• Over 130 beer reviews
• Reviews of 60+ breweries, brewpubs, and pubs
• Considerations of fifteen obscure(ish) styles
• An all-new "best-of" section that has never before appeared in print
• Typos, errors, factual improbabilities
• Rumor, gossip, speculation
• Poorly-sourced reportage, and
• No posts about Oregon's beer tax!

Important Questions Answered
The book will set you back $18 and can only be ordered online at Lulu. Yes, eighteen bucks ain't cheap, but Lulu charges a lot to print them out one at a time. More importantly, you're asking yourself, "why the hell would I buy a book when everything's available here for free?" You are a reader of this blog, and therefore astute and wise, and I expected you to ask. So:

• Books rock, and this one has a nice layout and substantial heft in the hand.
  
• There are over a hundred names listed in the index, and maybe one is yours--but you'll have to buy a copy to find out!
• It's relatively cheap when compared with the four pints you're going to go drink tonight at the pub and it will be there on your shelf in the morning, unlike those IPAs. Plus, no hangover!
  
• The proceeds of this endeavor will go to me, and like a lot of good causes, I can really use the dough.
• It's a fun and festive thing to do to celebrate the blog's anniversary.
• [Real answer]. Despite the fact that it's a collection of posts, the elements actually hang together very nicely. It's not comprehensive, but I honestly think that anyone who reads it will have a very good sense of this place we call Beervana.

Order your copy today!

Even if you decide to pass on the book, raise a pint to all the brewers, brewery workers, and readers who made this blog possible. I know I will--it's been a great five years.