New book

A new book is coming out this fall that ought to make a lot of people happy (or at least the ones who are unhappy about the book I wrote): Amy Mittelman's Brewing Battles: The United States Beer Industry from the Colonial Period to the 21st Century. As part of my research for my beer book, I read Mittelman's dissertation, a fine piece of work about the relationship between the liquor industry and the federal government in the late nineteenth century. I'm guessing this new book will hold up to her earlier standard.

The "Myth" of Beer and Adjuncts

Someone who heard the interview on Basic Brewing Radio's podcast wrote and asked me a very good question. See his comment at this blog entry. [The podcasts are both at Basic Brewing in the site's radio archives for 2006. Here's the gist of the comment/question from Gabe:

First, James Spencer talks about the "great American myth" that brewing companies (like Anheuser-Busch and Pabst) pushed smaller competitors out of the market, used cheaper additives in their beer like corn and rice, and helped facilitate the demise of more flavorful beers leading the U.S. into a dark age of bland beer from the middle of the 20th century until recently. I was one who generally believed that assumption to be true as well. Your book, however, disputes that myth and explains the history of American beer in a completely different way. My question then is why do you think this myth exists? How did it start? Were there marketing change during WWII causing the general public to believe that major breweries had changed their product in a detrimental way? What are your thoughts?"

Great questions -- and if only I knew all the answers. But let me give this a shot. First, for WHY I think this myth exists (or at least part of why I think), see the piece I wrote for Powells.com. It's here. Scroll down to the entry titled "Beer As Myth. Myths R Us." So that's my take on why the myth has such power.

As to Gabe's other questions: I think the brewers may have inadvertently fueled this myth AFTER the fact. Here's what I mean: back in the 1950s and 1960s, it's just a fact that MOST beer drinkers wanted a light-bodied, pale yellow beer. So a brewery's advertising often played up the lightness, the paleness, the smoothness of the beer. Americans wanted a smooth, light beer (and smooth, light cigarettes and smooth, light liquor!)

When craft brewing came along, some of the fans of "new" beer remembered all those old ads. Remembered the "smooth" and "light" beers of their youth. That plus the younger fans who grew up with craft beer and heard horror stories about "old" beer -- well, a myth was born! So there you have it: my version of "the beer myth."

Readers/listeners are grand!

I've been doing interviews for about two months, and I just realized today that I've made the icky mistake of taking for granted one of the best parts of this whole gig: Namely, feedback from listeners and readers.

A case in point are the two comments about the previous blog post (about homebrewers): smart, savvy, cogent comments from people who've read the book or heard an interview. You have no idea how much I appreciate the fact that someone, anyone!, would take the time to let me know they've been listening ore reading, and that they were interested enough to ask questions or add some feedback. (This includes, of course, all the amazing emails I've had from people around the country.) One of the great things about the internet is that it makes this kind of interaction so much easier for all of us. I only wish we could all sit down and have a beer together.

Again, my sincere thanks to all of you. (And shame on me for not saying it sooner!)

Here's to homebrewing

James Spencer is the brains behind Basic Brewing Radio. You can visit his site here. He dishes up a weekly podcast and a twice-monthly video cast, both of which focus primarily on homebrewing.

But today he interviewed me. Most people who talk to me about Ambitious Brew focus, no surprise, on the history of commercial brewing. But James, again no surprise, wanted to talk about homebrewing’s history. I’m glad he did, because it’s so easy to overlook the role of homebrewing in the creation of today’s craft brewing industry.

The first generation of microbrewers (in the late 1970s and early 1980s) came out of homebrewing. Not all of them succeeded, but they helped shape the microbrewing revolution. Indeed, I’m not sure if microbrewing would have happened had there not first been a homebrewing revolution of sorts in the 1960s and 1970s.

I discovered the significance of homebrewing when I researched the last two chapters of Ambitious Brew and interviewed people like Byron Burch, Charlie Papazian, and Michael Lewis -- and of course microbrewers like Jack McAuliffe and Ken Grossman, both of whom came to commercial brewing via homebrew. Even today, homebrewers make up the heart of the enthusiastic audience for craft brewers. And craft brewers readily acknowledge the importance of homebrewing. Some of them sponsor homebrewing competitions. Others regularly meet with homebrewers to share their expertise and experience. They participate in judging homebrewing competitions. In short, homebrewing is a vital and historically significant component of American brewing history.

So here’s to you, homebrewers. Raise your carboys high!

This week, you can find me . . . . .

. . . .at Powells.com, where I'm the guest blogger. I know, I know: given how much I hate blogging, it's more than a bit ironic. But I LOVE Powells and simply couldn't say no. Go here to find the blog pieces, starting today, Monday November 13, and running through Friday the 17th. If you've never visited Powells online or in person, you're missing something. The main store in downtown Portland, Oregon, occupies an entire city block and three (or four?) stories. Fabulous. Book heaven. The website is also marvelous! Lots of good "content," and their customer service is superb.

Parking lots

This has nothing to do with anything -- but WHAT is the deal with parking lot design these days????????? Is it the refuge of drop-outs from urban planning programs?

There's one lot here in Ames that was my first encounter with Parking Lot Hell: short, curvy entrance (and only one entrance) with a sharp left turn onto a too-narrow strip of road that takes vehicles into and back out of the lot itself.

But during this book tour the past six weeks, I encountered one horrible parking lot after another, all of them in new or newish shopping centers (which is where I could find bookstores so I could sign copies of my book). Driving lanes barely wide enough for two cars. Entrances that double as exits and entirely too narrow for either purpose. Narrow boxy lots that can't possibly handle the traffic roaming in and out. And not nearly enough parking spaces for the center itself, which means that at any given moment, dozens of cars are zooming in and out of these too-narrow, too-small lots as drivers hunt for elusive spaces to deposit themselves and their cars.

I really don't get the rationale behind the designs. If the idea is to provoke people into leaving their cars at home and walking to the shopping centers, well, that won't work because in most places there aren't a lot of residential areas nearby and even if there were, pedestrians would have to negotiate six or eight lanes of traffic on foot just to get into the shopping area. And if you're an avid pedestrian like me, you KNOW how dangerous that is (because most suburban areas are designed for cars, not people on foot.......)

Okay, enough of this rant. But really -- who is designing these things????????? Or -- wait -- maybe no one is. Maybe engineers and traffic planners are now using computers to do this: they feed in the number of shops, the number of expected shoppers per day, and let the computer design the lot. Surely that's the explanation. Because no rational human being could be designing these things.