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Guild Member Profile

Martyn Cornell

Writer
  • Full member
  • author
  • beer-historian
  • consultant
  • event-spking
  • journalist
  • East Anglia
  • mba
  • beer-judging-exp
  • how-to-judge-beer
  • international-beer-judge
  • world-beer-awards-judge
  • bhs
  • camra
  • north-american-guild-of-beer-writers
  • phs
  • beer-education
  • beer-styles
  • beer-travel
  • historical
  • history-of-beer
  • managingalcohol relatedhealthproblems

What is the one thing you'd like to tell visitors to the Guild's website?

Award-winning and widely published historian of beer, brewing and beer styles, consultant, speaker on beer and brewing history and educator.

What you can offer as a writer/beer lover?

Martyn Cornell is an internationally recognised expert on the history of beer, brewing and beer styles, speaking at conferences in Denmark, the Netherlands, the UK, Brazil, Ireland and the United States. His work has been translated into more than half a dozen languages, from Danish to Portuguese, and he has written about beer for more than 30 publications as varied as the Guardian, the  South China Morning Post in Hong Kong, c/o Hops in Sweden, Bar&Beer in Spain, What’s Brewing, Country Life, the Master Brewers of America Technical Quarterly, Beer Advocate, Craft Beer and Brewing and Brewers’ Guardian, as well as the Speinger Publications Geography of Beer series. He has worked with brewers in the UK and abroad, including the United States, Sri Lanka and Brazil, on projects involving beer styles and beer history, and with the University of Gastronomic Sciences in Italy, and appeared on radio and television talking about beer. He is an IBD-certified beer judge, judging at competitions in the UK and abroad. His books include Beer: The Story of the Pint (2003), Amber Gold and Black, a history of British beer styles (2010, published in Brazil in 2022 as A História das Cervejas Britânicas) and Strange Tales of Ale (2015). He is an eight-times winner in the BGBW awards, and a three-times winner in the North American Guild of Beer Writers awards.

What do you like most about being a Guild of Beer Writers member?

The guild gives those who love communicating about beer as well as drinking it the chance to meet those who love brewing beer and those who love selling beer, to everybody’s mutual pleasure and benefit.

Pieces of work by Martyn:

  • Seasons will pass you by: The return of Gale's Prize Old Ale

    How an almost vanished British beer style was brought back to life by the efforts of an enthusiastic brewer

  • 'Tishonest prewers' and lager bier operas

    The true story of the arrival of lager beer brewing in the United States

  • Kveik: the Ancient and Modern Way to Brew

    A look at the Norwegian farmhouse yeast known as kveik and its growing popularity among craft and home brewers, from Craft Beer and Brewing magazine in 2019

  • The Legendary Mercer's Meat Stout Returns After 75 Years

    Post from the Zythophile blog in 2019 about probably the weirdest beer ever brewed by a mainstream brewer