And here you thought scratch-and-sniff stickers were the purview of tots.
Brooklyn beer writer Justin Kennedy is putting his nose — or rather your nose — to the hops, pine and gooseberries in his new “Scratch & Sniff Guide to Beer: A Beer Lover’s Companion” (Harper Design, 160 pages, $22). The stickers are a gimmick, of course. (But you knew that.) They’re a creative way to propel you through the pages to see why on earth there are gooseberry or demerara sugar stickers in there.
Whether this volume was directly inspired by Richard Betts’ “Essential Scratch & Sniff Guide to Becoming a Whiskey Know-it-All” and “Essential Scratch & Sniff Guide to Becoming a Wine Expert” or simply part of some odd boozy scratch-and-sniff trend is open to debate.
In any case, “beer lover’s companion” is a much more apt descriptor for Kennedy’s book than “guide,” which implies a comprehensive and cohesive exploration of a topic. Instead, this bro-friendly book — which opens with a jolly foreword penned by San Francisco master cicerone and biergarten fan Rich Higgins — dabbles here, there and everywhere, hop-scotching through hops, beer styles, beer label artwork, bottle closures, beer cellar how-tos, glassware, brewery-centric travel, recipes (beer cheese!), puzzles (brewdoku!), quizzes and colorful stock photos.
In short, it’s a beer blog in book form — and there’s nothing wrong with that. We wouldn’t buy it for ourselves (or for a cicerone, for that matter), but it’s tailor made for beer-loving-BFF gifting.
