We like beer in Canada. We really, really like it. And it’s not just a fly-by-night, sordid little affair. We’re in it long term. We spend something like $8 billion a year on beer. From barley growers to label designers, more than 170,000 Canadians owe their fulltime jobs directly or indirectly to beer. The rest of us just do what we can to help.

In the long-awaited follow up to Notes on a Beermat, Pashley explores beer in Canada, covering many salient points, including chapters on

• Frère Ambroise, Who Started It All (Unless He Didn’t)

• Us Against Them: Canadians and Our Neighbours to the South

• When Canadians Knew Squat: The Stubby in Our Lives

• Beer: Isn’t It Bad for You and Bad for the Planet?

• Ale or Lager? East Is East and West Isn’t

• Barkeep! Gimme Another Light Dry Low-Carb Ice Beer with No Aftertaste

• Are You a Beer Geek? (There’s No Right Answer)

• The Future of Beer: Can I Afford to Drink Beer? (Can You Afford Not To?)

And much, much more!

NICHOLAS PASHLEY, born in Sussex, England, is a career bookseller well known for his erudition and sardonic wit. He was the trade book buyer and purchasing manager for The University of Toronto Bookstore for 20 years and also the editor/writer of The U of T Bookstore Review. He has served as a director of the Canadian Booksellers Association and as a juror for the Canada Council, the Ontario Arts Council, the Toronto Arts Awards and the Journey Prize. For many years, he has also been a member of the Campaign for Real Ale. A long-time resident of Toronto and a connoisseur of pubs and publishing, Pashley now devotes his time to hosting literary events and writing his next book.

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?A truly wonderful book from beginning to end. Hugely comic, delightfully acerbic, gloriously discursive and staggeringly well informed.?

(Bill Bryson on Notes on a Beermat)