I've been reading Greenmantle by John Buchan. It's a hundred year old spy novel set in Germany and the Mid East during World War I and it is a sort of sequel to the 39 Steps. If, like me, you read the 39 Steps and didn't think it was as good as the Hitchcock film Greenmantle will come as a pleasant surprise: it's exciting, fast paced and apart from some unironic jingoism (and an over reliance on coincidence) a very good read. There's an interesting scene early on where Hannay meets the Kaiser at a railway station and the sympathetic treatment of the German Emperor must have shocked many Brits at the time (it was published in 1916). ...
But I didn't really want to talk about the book that much, I actually wanted to chat about a unique experience in my life: reading the book while drinking the beer that's been named after it. I know of no other beer which has been named after a book, and didn't know about Greenmantle Ale until I found it in my local beer shop in St Kilda. Greenmantle Ale is a light session ale - malty, hoppy, smooth and very drinkable. To my mind there were caramel and chocolate notes and a pleasant slightly tannic aftertaste. The alcohol content is not high and you could knock back three or four and still concentrate on your novel.
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There are of course Thomas Hardy ales but I haven't heard of another beer/book combination like this. There's plenty of scope for others: War and Peace could inspire a Russian Imperial Stout and surely the Brooklyn Brewing Company could do something with Last Exit to Brooklyn. The lack of a Ulysses Porter seems like an enormous gap in the market, but of course sometimes its the evil of the giant brewing companies that's to blame.
