Bias warning: We can’t be objective about either of these titles, but any brewers or beer lovers who want to grow their knowledge of sensory science or Belgian beer should strongly consider adding them to their shelves. Plus: two more picks from the worlds of liqueur and flowable flavor.
Your Tasting Brain
By Randy Mosher, The University of Chicago Press, $35, 376 pages
In our Fall 2026 issue, in his article focusing on bitterness, Randy Mosher warns us about a trip down the “rabbit hole.” But those rabbit holes are exactly why his Flavor Fever columns are one of our favorite things to read and edit—each represents a different dive into the field of beer and sensory science, and we always learn something new. Longtime readers already know he has a gift for translating the complex details of hard science into something digestible and fun to read, dispensing with unnecessary jargon and connecting the technical details to our lived experience—connecting the iso-cohumulone to the deliciousness of this glass of pilsner. And somebody, bless them, commissioned him to write a whole book like that.
There are two main sections to Your Tasting Brain. The first is an immersion into the science of our senses—the multimodal ways that our bodies perceive things, how our brains process all that data into flavor, and finally how we interpret and communicate those flavors. The second is a more pragmatic look at what we’re tasting, from the molecular level on up to the specific vocabularies around beer, wine, coffee, spirits, and more. For brewers and beer judges and anyone who trades on the expertise, there are practical reasons to learn as much as we can about this stuff—it makes us better at what we do. But there are also hedonistic reasons. After all, tuning into our senses and understanding how they work can actually enhance our enjoyment of what we’re sensing. —J.S.
Good Beer Guide: Belgium, 9th edition
By Tim Skelton, CAMRA Books, £17.99 ($24), 320 pages
Before I co-authored two previous editions of this book, I adored it. Dog-eared and scribbled-in, it mostly lived in the Ford Focus wagon that my wife and I drove all over a country the size of Maryland. Today, in an age of superficial online reviews compiled by robots of dubious intelligence, expert guidebooks have become an arcane art. They’re not especially profitable, either, and their shelf life is limited. Trust me: This book is a labor of love, and it has been since Tim Webb authored the first edition in 1992.
Artisanal brewing in Belgium has blossomed since then, as it has elsewhere. Belgian brewers increasingly re-embraced hops, the locals re-embraced lambic beers, and there have been mini-renaissances in saison, oak-aging, and terroir-driven mixed-culture brewing, among other things—yet everything that made Belgian beer fascinating three or four decades ago remains at the heart of it today. And it’s all here in the GBGB, shepherded by Skelton’s highly capable hands. There’s some history for context, plus discussion of evolving styles and food. There are all the useful travel details and all the breweries plus recommended beers scored from a position of passion and knowledge. Then there’s my favorite part: a guide to the country’s finest beer cafés and bars— hundreds of them, city by city and village by village—oozing atmosphere and boasting beer lists longer than your arm. That’s where the real experience lives, timeless yet evolving, and I can’t wait to go back and use this book all over again. —J.S.
Espresso Herbtini Underberg
price varies
We’re not nuts about Underberg in the same way some of our brewer friends are—looking at you, Rodger—but in the right company, it’s a fun social ritual that we can get behind. This new Espresso Herbtini flavor is changing our minds, however, with its familiar punch of dark herbs, anise, and fennel in the aroma combined with a bright chocolaty coffee character and a softer sweetness in the sip that rounds the typically rougher edges. Joke all you want about how we can’t handle the real thing, but given the choice between original and this new edition, we’ll take the “pastry” version. —J.B.
Soluble Oak
$19.75–$22.75 for a five-gallon batch dose, solubleoak.com
Looking to dial in some oak flavor in your homebrew, firkin, or one-off small batch and don’t have the volume, time, or money for barrels themselves? Soluble Oak provides a precise way to add a bit of flavor. We tried it in a number of different beers, from light lagers and fruited sours through Baltic porters, and found that—with the proper dose—it provides a subtle roundness without sweetness to even the boldest brews. It won’t replace barrels, but it can add dimensionality and depth on demand. —J.B.
