The Brewers Association's Guide to Starting Your Own Brewery distills the wisdom of craft brewing veteran Dick Cantwell into one text that delivers essential industry insight. American craft brewers have always exhibited a sense of community and collegiality but the success of the industry is embodied by the production of consistently high-quality beer at community-oriented breweries. This book is an indispensable resource for aspiring brewery owners to turn that vision into reality. At every level, brewing is about careful planning and execution of processes. The author shows that this is no different when starting a brewery. Cantwell walks the reader through initial planning, from site selection, size, staffing levels, your brewery concept, and dealing with delays, to business planning and raising capital. Regulatory and legal issues are discussed—not least a brewery's obligations to the inland revenue service—along with strategies essential for starting and growing your operation, such as production and sales planning and brewery expansion either on site or opening new locations. The author includes several example business plans that are explored in detail, and peppers the book with his own personal and hard-won insights on everything from guerilla marketing to applying epoxy resin flooring. Within this big picture, the author weaves in critical aspects like brand identity, marketing, quality assurance, and distribution, not to mention details like equipment options, securing ingredients, and installing flooring and drainage that will stand up to the demands of a busy brewery. Finally, once your brewery opens its doors, the process of brewing needs to continue smoothly. You need to plan and adapt your brand portfolio, operate sustainably, dispose of wastewater correctly, and package and present your product in a way that will appeal to customers. Craft breweries pride themselves on conscientious operation, maintaining the safety of their staff and operating responsibly within their community, all the while being profitable. From concept to operation, this book gets you on the right track to succeed in one of today's most dynamic industries.

Brewing Battles is the comprehensive story of the American brewing industry and its leading figures, from its colonial beginnings to the present. Although today s beer companies have their roots in pre-Prohibition business, historical developments since Repeal have affected industry at large, brewers, and the tastes and habits of beer-drinking consumers as well. Brewing Battles explores the struggle of German immigrant brewers to establish themselves in America, within the context of federal taxation and a growing temperance movement, their losing battle against Prohibition, their rebirth and transformation into a corporate oligarchy, and the determination of home and micro brewers to reassert craft as the raison d etre of brewing. Brewing Battles looks at beer s cultural meaning from the vantage point of the brewers and their goals for market domination. Beer consumption changed over time, beginning with an alcoholic high in the early 19th century and ending with a neo-temperance low in the early 21st. The public places where people drank also changed from colonial ordinaries in peoples homes to the saloon and back to home via the disposable six pack. The book explores this story as brewers fought to create and control these changing patterns of consumption. Drinking alcohol has remained a favored activity in American society and while beer is ubiquitous, our country harbors a persistent ambivalence about drinking. An examination of how the industry prevailed in a sometimes unreceptive environment exemplifies how business helps shape public opinion. Brewing Battles reveals the complicated changes in the economic clout of the industry. Prior to the institution of the income tax in 1913 the liquor industry contributed over 50% of the federal government s internal revenue; 19th century temperance advocates portrayed the liquor industry as King Alcohol. Today their tax contribution is only 1% yet brewing actually has a much more pervasive influence, touching on almost every aspect of modern American life and contributing greatly to the GNP. Brewing Battles is this story.

Beer has never been a stranger to North America. Author Stan Hieronymous explains how before European colonization, Native Americans were making beer from fermented corn, such as the tiswin of the Apache and Pueblo tribes. European colonists new to the continent were keen to use whatever local flavorings were at hand like senna, celandine, chicory, pawpaw, and persimmon. Before barley took hold in the 1700s, early fermentables included corn (maize), wheat bran, and, of course, molasses. Later immigrants to the young United States brought with them German and Czech yeasts and brewing techniques, setting the stage for the ubiquitous Pilsner lagers that came to dominate by the late 1800s. But local circumstances led to novel techniques, like corn and rice adjuncts, or the selection of lager yeasts that could ferment at ale-like temperatures. Despite the emergence of brewing giants with national distribution, “common brewers” continued to make “common beer” for local taverns and pubs. Distinctive American styles arose. Pennsylvania Swankey, Kentucky Common, Choc beer, Albany Ale, and steam beer—now called California common—all distinctive styles born of their place. From its post-war fallow period, the US brewing industry was reignited in the 1980s by the craft beer scene. Follow Stan Hieronymous as he explores the wealth of ingredients available to the locavores and beer aficionados of today. He takes the reader through grains, hops, trees, plants, roots, mushrooms, and chilis—all ingredients that can be locally grown, cultivated, or foraged. The author supplies tips on how to find these as well as dos and don'ts of foraging. He investigates the nascent wild hops movement and initiatives like the Local Yeast Project. Farm breweries are flourishing, with more breweries operating on farms than the US had total breweries fewer than 50 years ago. He gives recipes too, each one showing how novel, local ingredients can be used to add fermentables, flavor, and hop-like bitterness, and how they might be cultivated or gathered in the wild. Armed with this book, brewers in America have never been better equipped to create a beer that captures the essence of its place.

Charting the birth and growth of craft beer across the United States, Acitelli offers an epic, story-driven account of one of the most inspiring and surprising American grassroots movements.

St. Louis Brews, Second Edition: The History of Brewing in the Gateway City features hundreds of historical images, a full chronology of the city's long brewing history, fascinating profiles of more than 125 local breweries, and capsules on the craft, regional, and nineteenth-century breweries. Available again in its second edition, the book begins with St. Louis' earliest brewing history--starting in 1809, the date of the city's incorporation, when beer was sometimes cooled in dug-out canoes--and tells the story of how St. Louis came to be one of America's foremost beer towns. That includes detailed backgrounds on St. Louis' beer barons, including Adolphus Busch and Eberhard Anheuser, a look at the city's golden age of brewing during the Belle Epoque, the impacts of Prohibition, and the InBev takeover of Anheuser-Busch in 2009. Finally, it gives the reader an up-to-the-moment look at the city's astonishing craft brewing scene, which began to blossom in 2009 and is now attracting national attention. Everyone in St. Louis loves to drink beer; they may love to drink it all the more knowing the city's rich backstory in beer and brewing.