From Russia With Love

The postman rang the doorbell in September with two copies of my Complete Guide to World Beer (Carlton Books), which will be available in the U.S. It's a thorough overhaul and updating of my mid-1990s Ultimate Encyclopedia of Beer.

What was especially interesting about the advance copies is that one is printed in Russian. Brewing is expanding at a furious pace in Russia and I wrote a new section about the country for the book. I think it may be the first book about beer by a western writer to appear in Russian.

It's intriguing to see that the title is IINBO or Pivo, the Slav word for beer, while my name appears in Cyrillic as. May the roubles roll in.