In Man Walks Into A Pub, Pete Brown takes us on a well-lubricated pub-crawl through the amazing story of beer, from the first sacred sip of ancient Egyptian bouza to the last pint of lager on a Friday night.

It's an extraordinary tale of yeast-obsessed monks and teetotal prime ministers; of how pale ale fuelled an Empire and weak bitter won a world war; of exploding breweries, a bear in a yellow nylon jacket and a Canadian bloke who changed the drinking habits of a nation. It's also the story of the rise of the pub from humble origins through an epic, thousand-year struggle to survive misunderstanding, bad government and misguided commerce.

The history of beer in Britain is a social history of the nation itself, full of catastrophe, heroism and an awful lot of hangovers.