Combine history and beer and I am in and I quickly pre-ordered Filthy Queens by Dr. Christina Wade that covers the history of beer in Ireland.
My overriding history book guide is that if it is textbooky then it is not good. History, when written well, can be electric. Most school taught history though is dry as dust.
Preamble aside, Wade has put fun into this gallop through Ireland and its brewing history from 300 AD up to 1900. I mean gallop because it is under 200 pages. Part of the reason is that back just over a century ago, a fire broke out in Dublin and the flames consumed a lot of historical documents. Making a hard task even harder and necessitating comparing other countries and making leaps and guesses as to what could have happened in Ireland.
I knew that I was in good hands when an Untappd joke appears on the pages of this book. Wade doesn’t bog you down with dates and instead finds little personal moments where people and beer intersected through the years.
The only down note is that the book ends at 1900. I know I wasn’t going to get modern craft beer in Ireland but I think the boundary end could have been up to pre-WW2 where there are more sources and info that could be passed on.
Every chapter of Filthy Queens had a nugget of learning, if not more and I am sure I will be referencing this book in the future.