I like to drink beer, not read about it. So, I approached Jamie MacKinnon’s The Great Lakes Beer Guide with the kind of enthusiasm your average frat boy has for prohibition.

However, after reading MacKinnon’s collection of ruminations and reviews of the beer worth drinking in the provinces of Ontario and Quebec and the states of Michigan, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Vermont, I revised my thinking. Now, I like to drink beer and read about it. Of course, as MacKinnon’s beer guide is adept at pointing out, to everything there is a caveat. I only enjoy reading about beer the way MacKinnon writes about it. Here is a fellow who understands that things aren’t always what they seem to be. In other words, an ale is an ale not because some beer company markets it as such, but because of its taste, odour, and colour. The message of MacKinnon’s book is clear: We, the beer drinkers of Canada, must learn to rely on our quaffing senses if we have any hope of determining the difference between the pasteurized, corn grits-based, tasteless beers being marketed as hand crafted intoxicants for the discriminating palate, and the real issue, like Nut Brown Ale of Kawartha Lakes Brewing Company, which boasts “soft roasty tones over a toffee base….Some floral-forest hints…Four-and-a-half stars.”

MacKinnon’s reviews are hilarious in their over-the-top language. This has the effect of keeping each review fresh and bubbly. He rightly lauds such beverages as Brooklyn Brown Ale, Fin de la Monde, and North America’s first cask conditioned ale, Guelph, Ontario’s Wellington County. He is also understandably critical of Pennsylvania’s Brewery Hill Cherry Wheat, Sleeman’s Cream Ale, and, of course, Ontario’s beer selling retail monopoly, the Beer Store. (The Beer Store, majority-owned by Molson’s and Labatt’s, is the reason Ontario residents haven’t had the opportunity to sample many of the beverages in this book, beers not just from across the border and Quebec, but from inside Ontario as well.)

Not only does MacKinnon trumpet the brewing renaissance in North America, he is knowledgeable about the struggles and tribulations of a cash-oriented industry nonetheless steeped in culture and tradition. My one minor complaint about this book is MacKinnon’s failure to factor in the pricing of these beers. He advocates beer experimentation, but does little to ensure that I won’t end up paying double when I finally do track down that elusive bottle of Vermont’s Blind Faith (of a “green and worty” taste – “nectarine- peach over a woody bitterness”).

By showing us the staggering variety of beer brewing in our own backyard, and helping us develop the critical tools we need to appreciate Great Lakes brewing, MacKinnon earns my grudging respect. A fresh, unfiltered read with hints of irony, flecks of bitterness and heady, carbonated enthusiasm. Four-and-a-half stars.