The Audacity of Hops: The History of America's Craft Beer Revolution
Beer making began with many small-scale brewers, but it quickly grew to a powerful industry as America’s taste for brew grew with immigration and urbanization. Prohibition briefly drove brewers back home to circumvent Volstead Act restrictions, but with the coming of repeal, beer was one of the first alcoholic beverages to reappear. Big business and mass advertising concentrated beer making into the hands of a few brewing giants. But Americans returning from European jaunts noticed the difference between foreign beers and ales and American standardized, mass-produced lagers. And thus, in the 1970s, small breweries began to spring up, and America’s craft-beer revolution was under way. Acitelli offers portraits of the dozens of entrepreneurs nationwide who started small-production runs and soon developed a following, often through their own brewpubs. The cast of characters he has marshaled demonstrates these microbreweries’ diverse individuality, even as some have grown into significant corporations of their own. --Mark Knoblauch