Born and raised in Central California, Evan Rail studied at UC Davis and at NYU in Paris, where he received his MA. His writing appears in a number of publications, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Food & Wine and VinePair, where he has a monthly column. His essay Why Beer Matters, an Amazon Top 100 Bestseller, was followed by The Brewery in the Bohemian Forest, an award-winning memoir. His poems and translations have appeared in The New Republic, Zyzzyva, Poetry Review and The Times Literary Supplement (TLS), among other journals. He lives in Prague.