Product Description

One of the most important but little-known aspects of early American history was beer's role in the founding of our country and its formative years. The definitive account of beer's impact on people and events that shaped the birth of a nation will astonish readers.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #642347 in Books
• Published on: 1998-11-25
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 300 pages

About the Author
Gregg Smith is a well-recognized historian and author of numerous books including The Beer Drinker's Bible. In 1997 he won the Quill and Tankard Beer Writer of the Year Award from the North American Guild of Beer Writers. He lives in Idaho Falls, Idaho.

Customer Reviews

Interesting Yet Lacking
Gregg Smith's book "Beer In America: The Early Years - 1587-1840" seeks to introduce ales, porters, and lagers as fundamental drinks of young America. Smith achieves mixed results in his account of beer's place in United States history.

The first half of the book is fascinating and rewarding, at least initially. Using lively prose devoid of the cumbersome style that sometimes appears in history works, Smith takes the reader into an American history that is resoundingly focused on beer. Fifty pages into the book, however, the approach loses its potency. Instead of allying his writing with realistic focus on fact, Smith begins to use the first half of his book as a condensed version of American history from Colonialism to the Jeffersonian period. While the pages are peppered with fascinating trivia and some important beer events, much of the history Smith describes is the same as what is offered in any high school or college American history classroom, albeit Smith does make a point to keep beer at the center stage. Sometimes Smith's focus on beer seems misplaced, for he almost seems to suggest that without beer, the United States would fail to exist. By the time the first half of his book concludes, much of what Smith writes seems as though it is a reasonable, long, undergraduate term paper.

Fortunately, Smith's later chapters make-up, in part, for weaknesses early on in his book. Chapter eight describes the history of big brewing industry in the United States. Beginning with Chapter nine, Smith begins to address specific social factors influencing and surrounding beer. Chapters eleven and twelve are welcome references describing early beer recipes and home brewing methods employed in early America. His fourteenth chapter is also excellent, it detailing Colonial brewing technology.

Reading Smith's book, I am left with a mixed opinion. On the one-hand, Smith goes out of his way to frame beer in America's historical context. He does this by almost blatantly shoving beer in every major event in early American history rather than focusing on facts surrounding beer. To be fair, however, Smith's telling involving beer in US history helps to weave a fascinating tale, one that breaks from often dull textbook accounts. For the livelihood Smith instills in American history, he ought to well be applauded. Criticism is warranted, however, in Smith's blind repeat of consensus history. For example, in spite of his frequent points that women played important roles in brewing, there are few women directly named in his account. Another problem in Smith's work is his inconsistent footnotes. The many intriguing facts and figures he notes are sometimes left without an apparent reference, and this is a shame for historians. From all of this, I wish that Smith had expanded his later chapters and condensed the first seven chapters of his book. Instead of retelling basic American history, Smith could well have more objectively accomplished his intention of explaining beer's fascinating role in early US history by focusing on important aspects of the brewing industry as well as amusing instances involving beer. There is no need to continually put a glass in the Founding Father's hands and there is no need to make it seem that the United States would cease to be without beer. In spite of these shortcomings, Smith's book is still a worthwhile read that leaves one to think about history every time he or she cracks a cool one.

Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.
This book is an intersting account of the role of beer in American history. According to Smith the two are almost inseparable. For instance, Smith illustrates how the American Revolution may never have happened or at least been successful without beer. Going back further, to the early Dutch and English colonies Smith demonstrates just how important beer was to the settlers. Did you know that in New Netherland there were more taverns than churches? Also church services were often held in taverns? Records from the early English colonies also show that in some cases colonists preferred to go to a tavern on Sunday instead of Church. As a result laws had to be enacted to reverse this trend.Smith also demonstrtates the historical significance of the tavern (and beer) in early American politics. Indeed, many of America's founding fathers were actually brewers and of course consumers of beer including Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin, George Washington, and Sam Adams.

Smith also discusses early prohibtions in America. What makes these prohibitions unique is that they never actually banned beer. As Smith emphasizes beer was considered a heathful drink at the time and many people never saw it as the cause of "sinful" drunkenness.

Beer in America also gives a short history of some of the early breweries in the United States. Some of which are still with us today notably Schaefer and Yuengling. In an intersting conclusion to the book the history of early mixed beer drinks is given. Though these drinks are no where near what we drink today this is where many of our holiday and seasonal brews come from. A short history of early brewing technology is also given.
The only real problem with Beer in America is that it should be longer. Stopping at 1840 does not do the book justice! Perhaps stopping at Prohibtion would have made the book go down just a little bit easier!

If you're into history....
If you are into history and beer this is a great book. Heck, if you're just into history it's a great book. Learn the problems the colonials had with recruiting an army and how they solved it (with beer, of course). Obviously the book reveals much more than that and is filled with fascinating information about how integral beer was to society in the late 1700's and early 1800's. It's a book that you would read more than once.

Worth your time and money.