I am a sucker for beer history so when I saw this book pop up for instant Kindle download. I snapped it up.
I am glad that the author has focused on just America because there is a lot of history to be unearthed. The first few chapters though were a little dry and repetitive but with enough thought provoking historical facts to keep me going. Especially when it details the place that the tavern or saloon had in a community and how it evolved in different points in history.
I must say that I was mentally comparing this book to the wonderful Last Call by Daniel Okrent about Prohibition and in most instances it was falling short of that high bar. But that could be due to prohibition being such a juicy historical event vs a longer timeline of bars and saloons over 200+ years.
A warning though. Don’t go into this book hoping to learn more about beer. This is (as promised) about the place where drinking happens and the people that inhabit it. This is more a book that leads to reading other books. You will want to read about the Five Points in New York city. You will want to read more about Shay’s Rebellion and many other tangents.