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(foto's van de persconferentie en presentatie van het boek)

preface book:

In London and New York, San Francisco and Tokyo, the „Style” pages of newspapers and magazines have a new obsession: Belgian fashion designers...Belgian restaurants...Belgian chocolate...Belgian beer. I am pleased to say that it started with beer (and would even like to think I had a hand in rolling the barrel). Now the very designation “Belgian” has gained a momentum of its own.
Do most Belgians realise this? Perhaps not. They are too busy cooking, eating, or having a beer. It did not bother them unduly when the rest of the world scarcely had time to say hello.
Remember that movie?: “If it‚s Tuesday, it must be Belgium.” Now, it must be Belgium whatever day it is. It is not so much that Belgium has changed; more that it has belatedly been noticed.
When those fashion designers were at art school, they knew they were in the country of Magritte, Rubens and Bruegel. The love of good food and drink? Belgians say they are “Burgundian” as though that were yesterday.
People are seldom nationalistically Belgian, perhaps because it is two nations, plus other odd bits. As a state of mind, though, Belgium may be more durable than it thinks. A Belgian brewing company is second biggest in the world - at least until someone else makes larger acquisitions. Hoegaarden and Leffe are becoming international names. Chimay already is. A restaurant in Philadelphia presents a dinner that begins with beer from Achel, and features every Trappist brewery. Even more remarkably, it presents another dinner with more than a dozen draught Lambics, mainly from Cantillon.
The best news in this fourth edition is of a wholly new Lambic brewery, at Drie Fonteinen, in Beersel. Another among several breweries new to this edition is Paeleman, in Wetteren. I asked André Paeleman why he had been so determined to brew. “Because I am a Belgian,” he responded, unprompted. Once again, there are born-again breweries in this new edition. Why did Marc Beirens re-start Duysters, in Diest? “It‚s in my genes, “ was his way of looking at it. My contention that Belgian brewers are the most idiosyncratic was seized by Antoine Bosteels: “I want to be the definitively idiosyncratic Belgian brewer,” he announced over lunch.
A lot of lunching happens in this book, and a lot of beer is consumed. The book looks smarter than ever, and contains much new material. It is a guide in its own idiosyncratic way. I hope it helps people to understand beer. Or Belgians. Or both...

Naar aanleiding van het overlijden van de auteur schreef Ben Vinken een hommage in Bierpassie Magazine n° 37, download hier.

Michael Jackson’s book Great Beers of Belgium is out in an extensively re-worked new edition this month. If you were in Belgium in February, you may have seen him talking about it on some TV talk shows and news programmes while also trying to complete his research, in cooperation with Beer Passion magazine. He visited 30 breweries during that trip. has done much more than add new breweries and new beers (with tasting notes for each). He has also re-written whole swathes of the text. Why? “Because the beer scene moves much faster than people realise,” he explains. I’m always on the move, too, so it is a constantly shifting perspective. The book has also been given a largely new portfolio of photographs and extensively re-designed. This is the fourth edition. The previous one was four years ago; the first ten years ago. It is published in English, Flemish, French and Japanese.

By way of a sample, we are printing the entire foreword, so that our readers can see what we mean.
Michael Jackson’s newest project is an internet beer-of-the-month club offering exclusively Belgian brews, initially to enthusiasts in the United States. Subscribers pay $45 a month. They receive 12 cases of beer a year, each from a different brewery. They also have access to a restricted section on the www.realbeer.com website, a subscription to the American edition of Beer Passion, and a copy of Jackson's book The Great Beers of Belgium.
Jackson chooses the beers. They must be brews that he likes, and they are all products not readily available in the U.S. The club is also a way of getting beer to the consumer quickly. The brews do not have to wait to attract the eye of a customer. They are distributed with the help of a wine club, and go straight to the door of a pre-determined individual.
Deliveries will begin in July with Hapkin, followed by, among others. Jan van Gent, Moinette Brune, St. Bernardus Abt, St. Feuillien Tripel, Bellegems Bruin, Mort Subite Gueuze (unsweetened), Verhaeghe Echte Kriek and Limburgse Witte. One selection that has already created excitement is Grottenbier. Brews such as the Petrus Aged Pale and the Malheur Brut Reserve, will have been specially created for the club.
There have already been launch events in San Francisco, including an evening at Toronado, a rock club specialising in Belgian beers. Jackson was interviewed for an hour on National Public Radio, and featured in the New York Times.
Belgian brewers supplying the club will join a promotional tour at the end of September, taking in the Great American Beer Festival, in Denver, and dates in New York and Washington, D.C.
Info: 001 888 380 BEER or visit www.realbeer.com.