Campaign for the American Reader: Pg. 69: "Ambitious Brew"

Tuesday, November 07, 2006

Pg. 69: "Ambitious Brew"

Ambitious Brew: The Story of American Beer is Maureen Ogle's new book about the history of American beer.

One would think we would know a lot more about this beverage that is as American as baseball and apple pie--actually, more American than apple pie. (When was the last time you saw forty-five apple pie commercials during a baseball game?) Yet I only had to skim Ambitious Brew's reviews and synopsis to realize I had no clue what the real story was.

I asked Maureen to apply the "page 69 test" to her book. Here is her reply:

Ambitious Brew examines 150 years of American beer, from the German immigrants who founded the brewing industry in the mid-nineteenth century to the microbrewers who transformed it in the 1980s and 1990s.

As a historian, I'm drawn to the everyday “stuff” that we take for granted, and to the lives of men and women whose drive and ambition compel them to create something from nothing. But like my two previous books (one a history of plumbing, the other the story of Key West, Florida), this one also explores my fondest fascination: what does it mean to be an American?

In Ambitious Brew, the lives of various brewers enabled me to think about the meaning of the “American dream” -- a vague concept whose tangible reality is typically mired in political rhetoric -- and the way in which opportunity shaped not just their lives, but the beer we Americans drink.

Finally, I try to structure my narratives around the lives of real people, using the kind of detail that humanizes the long-dead-and-buried.

To my delight, page 69 exemplifies my goals. Now whether it would persuade anyone to read the rest of the book -- well, that I don't know!

From page 69:

But the brewers' success also rested on what is too often overlooked by those eager to condemn the era's industrialists: captains of industry like [the brewing giants] amassed their wealth during decades of hard work. [Frederick] Pabst . . . left the house, which stood on the same grounds as the brewery until the early 1890s, each day before breakfast to tour the brewery and check on the day's work. That round completed, he returned home for a quick meal and then hustled back to the plant, where, except for a lunchbreak, he stayed until six o'clock. “He knew the different bottling machines just as well as the men operating them,” an employee once said, “and he took a pride in making a personal inspection” daily.

Adolphus Busch never claimed to be a “practical brewer”--indeed, almost none of the century's titans possessed formal training as a brewmaster--but few men in the business knew as much as he did about making lager, and he deserves recognition as one of the great American brewmasters. He analyzed and mastered every detail of brewing . . . . Study inspired confidence. “I am the maltster [and] superintendent of the malt-house,” he once explained, “ . . . and I am the buyer of the barley and the hops and I keep a general superintendence of the brewing process, fermenting process and stirring process.” Each day, he said, “I examine the barley” and visit “the malt houses with my various foremen and give them orders how I want everything done; . . . .”

Many thanks to Maureen for the input.

Click here to read an excerpt from Ambitious Brew.

Ever wonder how a writer is inspired to write on this subject and not that one? Click here for Maureen's inspiration.

To find out what happens when a self-professed "beer nerd" meets a beer historian, click here.

There is something about a book about beer that stirs people up. Click here and here for reviews and reactions to reviews (and comments on the reactions to the reviews) that seem to have started with an interest in Ambitious Brew and then took on a life of their own.