Travel Books: Lonely Planet offers brew view of globe

Photo: Surly Brewing Co.

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Surly Brewing Co. in Minneapolis, one of 36 U.S. breweries featured in “Lonely Planet’s Global Beer Tour,” offers 20 beers on tap, a 300-seat beer hall with a large deck and lawn.

Photo: Surly Brewing Co.

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Founded by a Danish science teacher who likes to experiment with beer recipes, Mikkeller’s flagship taproom is in Copenhagen, with more than two dozen others around the globe.

Photo: Peter Troest, Mikkeller

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Founded by three friends from Seattle, Burial Beer Co. in Asheville, N.C., serves a changing lineup of seasonal and revived specialty beers. Photo from “Lonely Planet’s Global Beer Tour.”

Photo: Burial Beer Co.

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“Lonely Planet’s Global Beer Tour” showcases breweries in 32 countries across six continents.

Photo: Lonely Planet

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Clockwise from far left: Sierra Nevada Brew ing in Chico, Stone Brewing in Escondido (San Diego County), Surly Brewing Co. in Minneapolis, and Mikkeller’s tap room in Copenhagen.

Photo: Stone Brewing

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Sierra Nevada Brewing offers a variety of daily themed tours at its headquarters in Chico.

Photo: Sierra Nevada Brewing

You’ve hoisted a stein at Munich’s Hofbrauhaus during Oktoberfest. You’ve stood in line in February for the seasonal Pliny the Younger Triple IPA at Santa Rosa’s Russian River Brewing Company. Maybe you’ve even thrown a craft beer down your chute at Deschutes Brewery, the big player that started small in Bend, Ore.

But there’s a world of other beer out there, which “Lonely Planet’s Global Beer Tour” (Lonely Planet Food, $19.99) can help you sample. The photo-filled guide highlights small and large distinctive beer makers in 32 countries across six continents, including 36 in the United States alone. California counts for seven of those; beyond the aforementioned Russian River are Fieldwork in Berkeley, Sierra Nevada’s headquarters in Chico, Stumptown in Guerneville, Lagunitas in Petaluma and San Diego County’s Stone Brewing and Ballast Point breweries.

For armchair travelers as well as beer aficionados, the international beer scenes may prove the most intriguing. The German legacy in Namibia, for example, includes high-quality microbreweries such as Swakopmund Brewing Co., based in a hotel pub, and the century-old Namibia Breweries, a giant producer that also makes small batches of Weissbier and a cult Urbock and offers tours of its Windhoek brewery.

Seoul’s Craftworks Taphouse Namsan, started by a Canadian expat in 2010, became the anchor of a neighborhood now known as “Craft Beer Valley.” And whether or not you’re planning to ascend Everest, a toast to hard-working sherpas at Sherpa Brewery in Chitwan, Nepal, seems in order.

All listings include “things to do nearby,” such as parks, museums and restaurants — even snorkeling, if you’re visiting Maui Brewing Company in Kihei. They also note which breweries are family friendly, are near public transport, or offer food, among other categories.

Some information is fragmentary. The international listings, for example, start with “How to ask for a beer in local language” and “How to say ‘cheers,’” but don’t offer pronunciation tips — so good luck with Egy sort, kerem (Hungarian) or Qing gei wo yibei pijiu (Mandarin). Luckily, ordering “a pint of Guinness” in Ireland generally serves as well as Pionta Guinness, le do thoil.

— Jeanne Cooper

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