Ambitious Brew: The Story of American Beer [Paperback]

Maureen Ogle (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 8, 2007

Ambitious Brew, the first-ever history of American beer, tells an epic story of American ingenuity and the beverage that became a national standard. Not always America’s drink of choice, beer finally took its top spot in the nation’s glasses when a wave of German immigrants arrived in the mid-nineteenth century and settled in to re-create the beloved biergartens they had left behind. Fifty years later, the American-style lager beer they invented was the nation’s most popular beverage—and brewing was the nation’s fifth-largest industry, ruled over by titans Frederick Pabst and Adolphus Busch. Anti-German sentiments aroused by World War I fed the flames of the temperance movement and brought on Prohibition. After its repeal, brewers replaced flavor with innovations such as flashy marketing and lite beer, setting the stage for the generation of microbrewers whose ambitions would reshape the brew once again.

Grab a glass and a stool as Maureen Ogle pours out the surprising story behind your favorite pint.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Conventional wisdom has it that giant breweries, driven by corporate greed, have flooded the U.S. with inferior-tasting swill, and the only beer worth drinking is from scattered boutique microbrewers. Nonsense, says Ogle: companies like Miller and Anheuser-Busch are actually near-perfect embodiments of the American dream (in which "liberty nurtured ambition, and ambition fostered success")—and if their beers became noticeably blander 50 years ago, it's because consumers wanted it that way. Ogle (All the Modern Conveniences) looks back at the early years of brewers like Phillip Best, Frederick Pabst and Adolphus Busch as they rose to success making European-style beers for fellow immigrants, converting plenty of native palates along the way. Such men, she claims, should be heralded as captains of industry like Gilded Age icon J.P. Morgan. This material is strong, as is Ogle's analysis of the slow but steady rise of the Prohibition movement, but her narrative loses momentum as she tries to encompass the post–WWII era and add the most successful microbrewers to her list of heroes. Her exuberant musings on the American spirit become distracting, but there's more than enough drama in the family sagas to keep even the soberest of readers turning the pages. (Oct.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

PRAISE FOR AMBITIOUS BREW

 

"A fascinating and well-documented social history that sheds fresh light on the bubbly sociable beverage."--Chicago Tribune

 

"From lager-making German immigrants to today's microbrew-meisters, a sudsy, briskly told survey of American beer. B+."--Entertainment Weekly

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 432 pages
• Publisher: Mariner Books; Reprint edition (October 8, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0156033593
• ISBN-13: 978-0156033596
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.3 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (28 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #623,888 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I'm a historian and ranter living three-dimensionally in Iowa and digitally at maureenogle.com.

My mission, which, yes, I've decided to accept, is to convert history haters into history lovers. Because let's face it: just about everyone leaves high school hating history. And that's too bad, because history is the story of the human experience --- and what's not to love about humanity?

For more information (because you DO want to know more, right?) visit maureenogle.com. And thanks for making reading part of your life.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 14 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars A story for beer aficionado's, history buffs, or brewing insiders November 10, 2006

By Brett A. Saffell

Format:Hardcover

Once I had penetrated the first three chapters of this book, I found it a fascinating and quick read. However, those first three chapters took about two weeks, despite a persistent interest in beer and brewing. I covered the remaining five chapters in two days.

The first several chapters (and 40 or so years of chronology) cover the beginnings of American brewing by explaining the origins of the Best brewery (which would become Pabst), the Uihlein's (Schlitz), and Adolphus Busch. These chapters passed slowly, and didn't entertain the way that popular history can (like Winchester's A Crack in the Edge of the World or Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything, Stephen Ambrose, etc).

However, I was extremely engaged by everything that followed. I thought the explanation of the causes and context of Prohibition was excellent. The narrative of changes in brewing in post-World War II America (consolidation, the dawn of modern marketing) was also very interesting, and did a nice job integrating societal and business changes into that story. I erroneously thought I'd experienced first-hand the rise of craft beer in America, but Maureen did a very nice job educating me on the true origins of this trend.

I was bogged down by the beginning of this book, but thrilled with the middle and end of it. This book would be a great resource for beer connoisseurs looking for an understanding of why American brewing is what it is, and as a cautionary tale for brewing executives.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Interesting survey of American lager-brewing history March 9, 2008

By Puck Mendelssohn

Format:Paperback

This is a great book if you're looking to learn something about the history of American lager brewing, and in particular about the giants (and now-deceased giants) of the industry. It covers quite a bit of ground I have never seen covered in any other book on the subject.

The author does have some biases which I think do color the book a bit. She has a contrarian tilt which seems to lead her to the view that big "industrial beer" from the giant lager-brewers is a better product than it really is. She does not seem to be as familiar as might be hoped with brewing itself, and consequently does not appreciate the extent to which the American brewing industry compromised product quality by relying on highly tannic, six-row malts and the notoriously bad-smelling Cluster hop, for example. And her interest in American brewing does not extend to ale (apart from the ales of the microbrew era); she seems to accept all too readily the notion that American ale-brewing in the pre-lager era was a cesspool of bad beer.

The upshot is that the book is perhaps a bit too favorable to the point of view of the great national brewers, and to their insipid style of high-adjunct, low-hop lager. But the early history of the large brewers is fascinating, and she shows genuine interest in the microbrew movement and its impact upon American tastes. A very, very enjoyable book.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Really should be called "The Story of American Beer Empires" February 23, 2012

By S. Koue

Format:Hardcover

I may change it to four stars, I feel it's around three and a half.
The book reads pretty well and complaints about confusion over the complicated relationships I think are not that valid. It is complicated and lots of extended family and lots of name changes but that is sort of the nature of the beast.

I had a couple of problems with the book. The first is a adoration of american style light lager as the pinnacle of "beer". She made some interesting points and I can see how that style took off. And I now give the guys much more credit for making a very good beer in that style. And in truth they virtually invented that style of beer so they get some points. However that is only one style of beer. There are MANY other styles of beer and they can be very good. What comes out is that the giants were actually good beer makers. They chose a style that many "beer people" find bland and uninteresting" but that does not mean that it is not well made.
The author unfortunately keeps implying and in some cases saying that everything but american light lager is swill and "bad beer", and that is simply not the case.

But then she admits that here sole knowledge about beer was drinking 10 cent glasses in college. If her self education had gone a bit deeper she may have written a more balanced look at american beer.

Another issue is that she has some factual errors. There is a point where she says that beer needs to be pasteurized or have preservatives added to make it safe to drink. This is completely wrong. There is no known human pathogen that is viable in beer. You can't get food poisoning from beer. A toss away part of that section mentions that these unscrupulous beer sellers were using filthy bottles. Filthy junk in bottles might make you sick.

Also alcohol IS a preservative, as are hops. The reason for pasteurization in beer has nothing to do with making it safe it has to do with killing the yeast and other microbes so it will have a long shelf life. If you don't the beer will go "sour" over time. This is not dangerous it is in fact done intentionally in "sour beers". Another beer style not mentioned in the book.

And my last big issue is that the focus is almost solely on the beer barons. It's fascinating and I enjoyed finding out more about that aspect of american beer history but it is ONLY one part of the history of american beer.

The book is titled "The Story of American Beer" and that is really not correct at all. It is mostly a story of the rise and tribulations of the american beer giants. Ironically none of these companies are american owned anymore. The largest "american" brewer is the Boston Brewing Company, founded by a man who was not even born when the moguls were at their hight.

Worth reading if you keep the limitations in mind.