Customer Reviews

Beer in America: The Early Years--1587-1840: Beer's Role in the Settling of America and the Birth of a Nation

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Any beer lover with a passing interest in history should enjoy "Beer a America: The Early Years" as an fun trip through the story of brewing in the United States. Not intended as a pure history book, it is instead the story of beer and brewers against the back drop of American History. In the telling it shows how beer was there, as a significant part of our culture as the country developed.

In the first part of the book author Gregg Smith takes yøu along a path, chapter by chapter, from the settling of the country, to English domination in North America, to the revolution and beyond to the formation of the country. Along the way he tells of beer's arrival, the development of an infant brewing industry, and the great events that occurred over a tankard of ale. Concluding the first part are brief histories of the most famous breweries of America's formative years.

In the second part of the book Smith continues on with chapters devoted to specific aspects of beer and brewing. One covers the technical aspects of brewing, another the tale of tavern life, one devoter to homebrewing, and even the effects of early prohibition movements.

In all, the book is an thorough and entertaining look at beer and deserves a spot on any beer lovers book shelf.

This book is a very creative look at American history starting with the landing of the Mayflower in 1587. The book looks at the birth of a country from the perspective of a beer lover. The book seems to be historically accurate but I question if the role of beer is overstated in this book. At times Smith gives the impression that without beer the country would still be under English rule because there would have been no continental army if not for the beer retions. All in all Smith succeeds in entertaining you. There is no doubt that great minds like Washington and Adams came up with some of their best ideas over a pint of ale at the local pub. One of the strongest points of the book is the chapter on colonial drinks. This chapter makes the book worth it all by itself. The reader will be amazed at what the colonists considered a good drink. The book comes with my strong recomendation because it is easy to read and it gives some insight into how our founding fathers liked to unwind. If you have a slight interest in history, a love for beer and a bit of imagination, then this is a good book for you.

From our grade school history lessons we know that Ben Franklin was a great man. He invented the library, the fire department, the bifocal and discovered electricity. What they never told us is that an even better case could be made for his greatness. Ben Franklin also offered relief in times of beer shortage with the first published recipe for a pumpkin ale and relief from hop shortages with instructions on using spruce as a replacement. One of Ben's greatest disappointments in life was that his son, William Franklin, the Governor of New Jersey, was a British loyalist during the War for Independence but he no doubt took comfort in the fact that when the chips were down, he did enact laws to restrict the flow of American beer to British soldiers. In his book Beer In America - The Early Years 1587 - 1840, Gregg Smith retells the story of America's earliest years from the vantage of the American Brewing Industry. In his well documented account, beer, ale and cider are major players in such well known stories as the landing of the Mayflower to the discussions and debates leading up to the Declaration of Independence. Beer, malt and hops remain a point of contention between the colonists, thirsty for beer and in need of British raw materials, and their oppressors throughout the Revolution and become a political issue in the years following. In part one of his book, Smith takes us from the very earliest accounts of beer shortages and brewery building in the colonies through the colonial period and Independence into the expansion of the United States in the early 1800s. All the while we encounter familiar characters in the unfamiliar role of beer advocate. George Washington, we learn, should also be known as the father of American craftbrewing for his effort to persuade people to drink locally produced porter. And while James Madison and Thomas Jefferson had to table their plans to build a national showpiece brewery in Washington to handle the War of 1812, Francis Scott Key wrote our National Anthem over a few pints of American beer. Smith also pays homage to the early giants of American brewing in brief but complete histories of now popular names like Schaeffer and Yeungling and forgotten pioneers like Lauer and Woerz. In Part Two Smith examines the beer culture of early America with the same attention to detail. A well documented look at colonial brewing technology, temperance efforts and homebrewing complete the section beginning with an examination of the American tavern and its role in the American lives and a curious chapter on American beer based cocktails. As we should expect from a historian like Gregg Smith, this volume is a gem of beer lore and American history. It is a well documented, fun and easy read that is a must for anyone who loves history and should be enjoyed with a tankard of American Porter. George Washington would be proud.

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.

The first half of this book reads like an undergraduate's attempt to puff up the word count of a weak thesis. My initial excitement at starting this tale quickly turned to disappointment as it became evident that I was being presented with a repetition of my 7th grade US history textbook with "and there was beer there" inserted willy-nilly into Constitutional Conventions and such.

The book gains a bit more traction (and substance) as it enters the 19th century, and closes much stronger with a treatment of various issues (e.g. excise) that influenced the course of brewing history in the US. The author would have been better served by a more exacting editor.

Readers looking for a serious treatment of early American brewing history should look elsewhere. Those looking to refresh their memory of the bare essentials of American colonial history while quaffing a pint might find this worth their while.

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.

That's how they felt in colonial times. What a great book detailing how brewing in America grew in lock step with the country (and actually influenced growth). Most people don't realize just how important beer was in Colonial America and during the early years as the United States. This book does a fine job detailing some of that importance. If you have even a passing interest in this subject, you'll enjoy this interesting book. The section on how beer based "cocktails" were made in colonial taverns will certainly open you eyes. So crack open a cold one and enjoy!

This book was easy to read and very informative. Must buy for any one interested in American beer history.

This is my favorite book. Being a home brewer reading this book really helps me feel the roots of the brewing craft. We need to get the word out about real beer with flavor, not the mega swill (Bud, miller, coors) that most Americans drink. Prohibition caused that. Get the book.

A lot of low-quality writing with poor research and lack of understanding of the culture surrounding the subject matter is floating around in the world, and if you're looking for an excellent example of that, look no further than Gregg Smith's Beer in America.

Purporting to be an "Award Winning Historian" (he's actually an award winning writer. He has no historical credentials or awards), Smith attempts to write a history of America through the lens of beer with mediocre to downright bad results. Throughout the book, which relies heavily on a very limited number of other books, he forces his subject, beer, into situations where it is no more relevant than shoe leather or pottery. His thesis for the first half of the book could be summarized as "people drank beer in America."

Moreover, he seems incredibly unfamiliar with the America of the 17th and 18th century. In his chapters' fictionalized introductions, where he tries to paint portraits of early American life in relation to beer, he seems to have a fundamental lack of knowledge about life in the period. Talking about the high quality uniforms issued to the Continental Army or claiming a man would go out in public in just his shirtsleeves, he paints a false picture of colonial, revolutionary, and early republican life that makes all his other statements incredibly suspect.

Smith also seems to fail to realize who he is dealing with much of the time. He refers to Peter Faneuil, one of the most prominent merchants in colonial Boston, as a "tavern keeper." Louis Philippe is called "Frenchman," as the author is apparently unaware of his nobility. Talking about the militias in the revolutionary war, he refers to Governor John Winthrop's assessment of a training session, apparently without knowledge that Winthrop hadn't been governor for over 100 years when the war broke out. Judge Samuel Sewall is reportedly best known for his anti-slavery tract. Apparently his involvement in the Salem Witch Trials was unknown to the author.

His knowledge of the historical community and it's work is also suspect. At one point he criticizes "even the best historians" for their omission of Buckman's Tavern in the story of Lexington and Concord. While I'm not sure who he thinks the "best historians" are, Buckman's Tavern is a well known part of the story of the outbreak of the revolutionary war, and apparently lesser historians such as David Hackett Fischer and Bill Fowler have referred to it. This is understandable, though, when one realizes the author has no idea who "the best historians" are. At another point in the book, he refers to Charles Mees, a semi-notable playwright and middling historian who borders on disreputable and lives in the realm of unknown as "eminent historian Charles Mees."

There are, at times, moments of interest in Beer In America. The second part of the book particularly deals with some interesting drinking recipes and traditions. Those are hurt by the author's habit of citing only a few sources (why not just read Brewed in America and 100 Years of Brewing given how heavily the author leans on them). The author than makes the inexplicable choice of attacking the credibility of 100 Years of Brewing after citing it multiple times in multiple chapters.

For a novel reader who's looking for a badly researched book about how awesome beer is, you might find this enjoyable. For a serious historian, I'd look elsewhere.