Another find at the public library. However, I did go ahead and order it for our library at UHD as well (being the Arts and Humanities Librarian, books like this fall under my area). I don't rate it higher because, while very interesting, it can be a bit slow on the pacing at times.

See my note about it in the personal blog:

[http://itinerantlibrarian.blogspot.com/2007/04/booknote-ambitious-brew.html] ( )

Ogle treats the history of beer seriously but not without humor. I was not interested in reading this but in the end am glad my book club chose it. I learned quite a bit about the big brewers, like Anheuser-Busch (the biggest), and the smaller, local and micro brewers. Who knew that the craft brewing movement, and brew-pubs, started in the San Francisco Bay area? Not me, although in the seventies I first tasted Anchor Steam and then Sierra Nevada Pale Ale a few years later... ( )

I found this at the IPFW bookstore in the cheap books, and read it with relish. I've been trying to get the words together to write a post about it, but since nonfiction isn't really my forte, it's hard for me to write my feelings about this book. I liked it though. But I don't feel like I have the qualifications to judge something that has a five page acknowledgement page and an eight page bibliography. I will say that the fact it doesn't read like it has those things is a plus.

This book tells the story of American brewing, starting with the immigration of Germans and ending around 2004 with the plethora of microbrews available. Ogle has a fairly conversational style, and has a knack for sticking interesting stories into the history that make the text flow faster. Although it is about the industry as a whole, it mostly follows the fortunes of what would eventually become Anheiser-Busch and Pabst Brewing Co. I also qualify it as a story of America as a country, and our trials and tribulations to become the country we are today.

Anyone who knows me knows that I am a drinker, and that I can drink beer like it's my native language. And that I'm kind of a snob about how to drink it, partially due to bartending for so long. However, after reading this book, I've come away with a lot more respect for the big brewers. And I no longer blame them for all the unwashed douche bags who drink tasteless beer by the gallon. (It's more like: the big brewers make tasteless beer because there are a lot of unwashed douche bags out there.)

So i was destined to enjoy this book from the moment I picked it up. If you find beer interesting and want to know more about it's history, check this book out. Ogle put a lot of work into it, and at no point did I get bored with it, as I usually do with nonfiction books. (I have been known to skip through them, only reading the parts I want to learn about.) ( )

This book actually reads pretty quickly for a nonfiction title. The book is really about the story of early America, immigration, and the finding of the American dream, as told through the story of beer. Some of the first big companies in America were big breweries, and they mastered business techniques that are still used today. Pretty interesting. ( )