The Comic Book Story of Beer: The Worlds Favorite Beverage from 7000 BC to Todays Craft Brewing Revolution by Jonathan Hennessey

The Comic Book Story of Beer: The Worlds Favorite Beverage from 7000 BC to Todays Craft Brewing Revolution Reviews

• 
  Sesana

  Informative, apparently well-researched, passionate, and nicely illustrated. This is everything I could ask for in graphic nonfiction. I have to imagine that this would be an even more exciting read for people who drink beer, especially those who are interested in craft beers. I'm neither, just a history nerd with a special interest in the history of food and beverage. For me, this book was largely an enjoyable read, densely packed with information without going off on too many tangents or including much that struck me as extraneous.
• 
  Tabatha (tab.talks.books)

  
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  ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️💫
  There’s nothing more I’d want in a graphic NF novel. This book was so heavily detailed that at times it was kind of 😳 and I felt myself wanting to skim a bit in the beginning but towards the middle/end I couldn’t stop reading it. So much information and if your a beer lover like I am it’s so nice to read about all the different types of beers and how they are made. Great facts to throw out next time you’re in the brewery too. Beer trivia-I’m taking home the trophy! 😂
• 
  Kimberly Carrington-Fox

  Un cómic sorprendente e interesante, destinado a los amantes de la cerveza y a toda la gente que sienta curiosidad por su fabricación. Mezclando humor y varios estilos de dibujo, vamos haciendo un recorrido histórico por la cerveza y su evolución (cómo se cree que surgió, dónde, etc.) hasta nuestros días, pasando por su modo de fabricación y la evolución que este ha tenido. A pesar de la cantidad de datos que se dan en ningún momento se me ha hecho pesado, el hecho de que sea un cómic y que el texto se vea apoyado por viñetas lo hace todo mucho más ameno. Gracias a él puedes entender por fin las diferencias que hay entre los distintos tipos de cerveza, lo que aportan sus diferentes componentes al resultado final, etc. Ha sido una lectura agradale y amena y me parece un libro ideal para regalar.
• 
  Stewart Tame

  The very existence of this graphic novel fascinates me. With the popularity of craft brews, I can see the general interest in the material, but why a graphic novel? I'm not complaining, just curious. I actually don't drink beer. Something about the basic flavor just puts me off. I've tried quite a few over the years, but never found one from which it was worth taking more than a polite sip or two. I do love comics though, and am especially happy to read one on a topic not normally associated with the medium. Beer is one of those commodities as old as civilization itself. The book gives the full history, from the earliest known archeological evidence right up to the current microbrew revolution. It reads pleasantly enough, and the artwork is well-suited to the task. The book's conclusion drags on a bit, partly due to the creators' decision to do their summary paragraphs in the form of beer labels, a conceit that's just a little too cute for its own good. All in all, not a bad book. I, for one, learned quite a bit about beer that I didn't already know.
• 
  Chelsey

  This review is based on an ARC copy from NetGalley.
  
  
  Love love love this book!
  
  There's no doubt that craft beer is super popular at the moment, so whether your'e a beer drinker or just interested in pop culture, this book is for you. I know reading a book on the history of one specific thing sounds very dry and tedious, but this book never bored me and never felt like a chore to read. In fact, the illustrations and light tone of the book made it quite a delightful process!
  
  I never new beer had such a rich history. This book introduces the many ways that beer has been influenced by, and in turn has influenced, so many cultures around the world. The production and consumption of beer has played a major factor in almost every historical era, and almost every continent on the planet. I highly recommend this to anyone interested in food history, history in general, or pop culture.
• 
  Jon

  This graphic novel is a wonderful love letter to beer. The story is written with the passion that only a true beer lover can have about the subject. This is a very in depth history going from prehistory to today. While I wasn't worried because I'm the kind of guy that likes dry histories, I was pleasantly surprised at how engrossing and readable this graphic novel is. I honestly couldn't put it down. I loved how the author didn't only tell the history of beer in general, but went into the back stories of many different varieties of beer. This is a must read for any beer lover.
• 
  sologdin

  Someone sent this to me at the time I marked my fourth decennial, but didn't pop a card or return address in there, so they remain safely anonymous whereas I remain fucking forty. So, thanks, yo, whoever you are!
  
  As I don't know anything about brewing, I can't comment on the presentation of the production process or the history of different varieties (lambics, doppel, porter, &c.). Cool, though, that beer does in fact have a history. (I imagine there must be an Althusser of brewing out there who has said that 'Beer has no history," however.)
  
  Amusing, the presentation of the ancient history of beer, wherein, say, the bloodlust of Sakhmat is assuaged only because the Egyptians offered her a cold one. To think mathematically about that, it must mean that beer may substitute in for blood, which makes all'y'all beer drinkers (I'm more of a wine drinker) basically equivalent to vampires. Hemophages. Gross!
• 
  Daniel

  I went into this one with high hopes, but it left me disappointed for four reasons:
  
  1. It spends far too much time trying to prove to the reader how important beer is. I'd rather have more information and less of a sales pitch!
  
  2. The first section about early beer is mostly mythology along with stories that even the book admits are probably false! Why even have this in the book if you know it's probably not true?
  
  3. It feels like it's lacking in information. I'm not a beer historian, but if beer was so important to mankind in general, shouldn't there have been beer in parts of the world other than Europe or America? The book focuses solely on those locations, which seems too European-centric.
  
  4. The artwork can be rather weak at times.
• 
  Ryan

  A VERY detailed history of beer. At times it was a little slow, but overall a good read. I learned a lot and the illustrations were superb.
• 
  Maria

  Many thanks to NetGalley and Ten Speed Press for a digital Advanced Reader Copy in exchange for my review.
  
  Don't let the fun comics format lull you into thinking this is simply a light romp about drinking beer. Sure, that may be where it starts, but it is so much more. This is a history book, complete with footnotes and references (a few are in the book, but the full list of chapter notes can be found on
  their website) and an index! Not only will you be entertained, you will be educated. This is a history class you wish you had in college. Like a good brewery tour, you will learn about the process of making beer, though an even more detailed account. But that's only the beginning.
  
  My favorite way to study history is take a topic and follow it over time and throughout a geographic area, noting its cultural, religious, and economic impact. Beer makes a good such focal point because it has been around (in one form or another) for millennia, and is drunk the world over. (Also, I'm a big fan, and can be rather beer-snobish.) "Around the globe, people consume more beer than coffee, wine, and even Coca-cola."
  
  Yet, the industry as we know it today, is vastly different than it has been over time. "For nearly all of human history, brewing and serving beer has been an almost exclusively female enterprise!" In ancient Summaria, the goddess of beer, Ninkasi, was worshiped for bringing this sweet nectar to the people. Only a few centuries ago, "Beer made a decided emergence from the kitchen. Brewing became a male business that generated manly profits. In large part, women were squeezed out. Ninkasi would have wept. The death knell had sounded for the millennia-old tradition of Alewives and Brewsters."
  
  The basic ingredients of beer today have been the same for centuries, but the addition of hops was no less than revolutionary. The preservative qualities meant that consumption did not need to happen within a week or so, but the drink could be stored for longer times, and therefore shipped beyond the immediate brewing area. A current beer trend is to play with the flavors, varieties, and intensity ("an arms race with hops"), but hops is frequently an acquired taste. In fact, "for most of beer's history, adding hops would have been about as common and acceptable as using, say, asparagus, as a flavoring." (For those with allergies,
  beer without hops can be found, though you may need to do some searching.)
  
  The second half of the book focuses on the US. Even the pilgrims were fans of beer, but the country (officially) went dry during prohibition. During that time, alcohol manufacturers had to find other products to produce ("some breweries turned to making ice cream”), but the smaller companies weren’t able to last. After prohibition was repealed -- during your next argument over who may claim the Greatest President title, keep in mind that "newly elected President Franklin Roosevelt proposed to immediately reauthorize the manufacture and sale of beer” -- the largest surviving breweries got even bigger, and began to compete within a narrow flavor profile. “The desires of American drinkers led them to the same sort of product: inoffensive, mass-produced blonde, light-bodied, 'drinkable' lagers with little or no cumulative bitterness.” American Lagers are often snubbed by today’s craft beer drinkers, yet “remains the most widely consumed beers brewed in the world.” It may be no coincidence that it pairs well with "hot dogs, peanuts, and cracker jacks.” (And, perhaps, apple pie?)
  
  Despite this being the vast majority of beer consumed today, there have always been those on the fringes who seek something different, something unusual. Even during the mid-1400s -- when Bavarian purity laws began to require that beer could be made with nothing other than water, barley, hops (and yeast) -- there were “home brewers [who] experimented with a variety of ingredients." Today’s craft beer movement was born “in reaction to American Lager's ubiquity,” and has exponentially increased the number of producers. Post prohibition, but before home brewing was again legal in the US, “American breweries fell to an all-time low of just 44 breweries." Just 36 years later, “there are over 3,200 breweries in the U.S. And more than 2,000 are reported to be in planning!” Craft-beer drinkers may be in the minority, but, along with modern home brewers, we are driving an expansion of the market. “Brewers discovered that some American drinkers were willing to pay top dollar for handmade, flavorful, premium beer,” a fact which has led to us creating “a wider diversity of beers than any other nation in the world.”
  
  Since I working in a library where there is an amazing collection of reading material available at no charge (not counting late fees), I rarely buy books. But I enjoyed this book so much, it is one of my exceptions for this year. I picked up my own copy at a local bookstore so I could bring it to show off at Bier Klasse and loan to friends. (I may even buy copies as gifts.)
  
  Read this book with your favorite brew (perhaps one mentioned in the story), and with your next beer, raise your glass to Ninkasi!
  
  The Beers (etc):
  p 2 -
  PBR - can
  p 9 - Bass - bottle
  p 11 -
  Dogfish Head Chateau Jiahu - bottle
  p 46 - La Lorraine - mug
  p 60 - Classic examples of Lambics: Boon Oude Gueuze; Cantillon Rose de Gambrinus; Drie Fonteinen Kriek; Allagash Resurgam p 61 - several - bottles
  p 65 - Classic examples of Trappist Dubbels: Wesmalle Dubbel; Chimay Premiere (red label); La Trappe Dubbel; Ommegang Abbey Ale; Sierra Nevada Oliva Abbey Dubbbel
  p 83 - Classic examples of Bocks: Einbecker Ur-Bock Dunkel; Spaten Optimator; Eku 28; Tommyknocker Butt Head Bock
  p 88 -
  Fraunce's Tavern Extra Lager Beer - sign
  p 94 - Classic examples of Porters: Fuller's London Porter; Samuel Smith's Taddy Porter; Great Lakes Edmund Fitzgerald; Anchor Porter
  p 96 -
  Guinness - brewery
  p 97 - Classic examples of India Pale Ales: Meantime India Pale Ale; Bell's Two Hearted Ale; Stone IPA; Bear Republic Racer 5 India Pale Ale
  p 108 - Classic examples of Pilsners: Pilsner Urquell; Budweiser Budvar (Czechvar in the US); Victory Prima Pils; Bitburger Pils - classic example of a Pilsner; Brooklyn Pilsner
  p 109 - Michelob, Labatt Blue, Heineken, Sapporo, Corona
  p 112 - Budweiser - bottles
  p 115 - Carlsberg Brewery
  p 123 - Jacob Ruppert Knickerbocker - bottle
  p 128 - Schlitz; John Haucks Beers; Pabst blue Ribbon
  p 129 - Krueger's Finest Beer - can
  p 132 - Groves & Whitnall, Barclay Perkins, Whitbread, Watneys - breweries
  p 133 - Hamm's - ad
  p 134 - Gabliner's Beer - can
  p 134 - Lite Beer from Miller - bottle
  p 135 - Classic examples of American Lagers: Budweiser, Miller, Coors
  p 136 - Heineken - ad
  p 137 - Anchor Steam - pint
  p 138 - Watney's Party Seven bitter - party can
  p 139 - Kruger's Bar
  p 141 -
  CAMRA: CAMpaign for Real Ale
  p 142 - Anchor - Christmas ale, hoppy ale, barley wine, porter
  p 143 - several - bottles
  p 144 -
  New Albion - label
  p 146 - Classic examples of American Pale Ales: Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, Deschutes Mirror Pond Pale Ale; Dale's Pale Ale
  p 154 - Bert Grant's Brewery Pub; The Hopland Brewery
  p 155 - Pitsburgh Brewing Co. - bottlecap
  p 156 - Samuel Adams Boston Lager - bottle
  p 157 - Classic examples of Belgian Wits: Hoegaarden Wit; Allagash White; Blue Moon Belgian White
  
  
• 
  Jeffrey E

  Beautifully drawn and entertaining. At times it took some strange asides that I did not entirely follow. Otherwise, very educational.
• 
  Kelsey

  Informative, crisp art, covers a lot of history but doesn't feel too rushed. Also learned about the badass Carry A. Nation of the Temperance Movement, with the self-proclaimed nickname of the "Saloon Smasher" who "earned notoriety by carving a path of destruction across 1890s Kansas": " I opened the bungs of the beer kegs, and open the faucets of the barrels, and then the beer flew in every direction and I was completely saturated.
  
  Give that lady a Netflix mini-series!
  
  I did think it was a bit odd to draw all of the microbiological organisms as robots, considering they're alive. A stylistic choice I would not have made, but I guess they wanted to "show off the power of microbiology" and that was what the artist thought would work well.
• 
  Garrett

  Delightfully refreshing, with a charming and strong finish, this Comic Book Story of Beer ranks high with all of our tasters...
  
  ...and you can see where I'm going with this. Seriously, though: packed with solid, documented history (and clearly marking simple assertions and conjecture when they occur) and lushly illustrated, this is one of the more fun histories of anything you will likely ever read.
• 
  Mark

  
  http://www.unshelved.com/bookclub/201...
  
  http://edelweiss.abovethetreeline.com...
  
  
  http://marklindner.info/bbl/2016/03/h...
• 
  Bert Heymans

  If you're interested in beer, this is great. You'll learn a lot without feeling like you're studying. However, if you're looking for a good story ... this will not scratch your itch. The comic style is nice but feels very chaotic because it wants to stay true to the subject matter. Recommended for every aspiring beek geek, but not so much for the comic lovers among us.
• 
  Rachel

  Gets the Catholic Church completely wrong. Just more anti-Catholic propaganda thrown into a story that doesn’t even need to touch this topic. Catholic priests, friars, and nuns were the only individuals who willingly exposed themselves to plague-ridden people and attempted to heal them. Catholics founded the first hospitals in the Western world. This comic book makes it appear as though Catholics in the Medieval era had no understanding of medicine, science, or personal hygiene, which is completely inaccurate. These “historians” need to stop proposing lies and do some real research.
  
  Apart from that, I enjoyed the second chapter which explained the process of brewing beer. I think the writers tried to cover too broad a topic because there wasn’t really any well-researched history, and it jumped around too much, failing to tie everything together. It was based more on myths and legends than fact. But I did like the artwork.
• 
  Nick Klagge

  I thought this was just OK. There's a lot of decent information about the history of beer, although most of it was already familiar to me. (I did, however, learn that there is now a certified Trappist monastery brewery in Spencer, Massachusetts!) Ultimately I didn't feel like the book did anything in particular to leverage the graphic novel format--the illustrations don't have a strong characteristic style, nor did they seem to tell the story any better than you could tell it in words. (But if you just used words, I guess it wouldn't have been enough for a book!) Finally, negative points for some unnecessarily sexualized illustrations of women (primarily of the Sumerian beer goddess Ninkasi).
• 
  Cinky

  We were born too late to explore the world, too soon to explore the universe, but right in time to explore the widest variety of great beers in human history. And thats something to be grateful for.
• 
  Mark Mcdermott

  This book is a decently thorough, yet concise, book on beer, not only its history, but on the science behind the brewing process. Hennessey, who has written other graphic "novels" on history, and brewer Mike Smith, sift through a lot of history and come up with some new ideas. Like the fact that we can only date the history of beer back to 7000 BC because that's when people started making it in pottery that can be found today; animal skins or wooden vessels from earlier times would have decayed away. The authors delve a bit further, too, into other aspects of beer history that are just touched on elsewhere: the fact that Rome and the Greeks were responsible for denigrating this universal brew only because THEY had wine grapes (and once Christian Rome fell to those beer-swilling barbarians, it was up to the far flung, beer brewing Irish monasteries to keep civilization going); the centuries-long role of women as primary brewers (and the first "public houses" were likely the homes where the lady of the house was good at her craft). I could summarize more "I never thought of that" bits, but let's move on.
  Sprinkled through the book are one-page infographics of historic beer styles, like bock, Trappist dubbel, porter, IPA, American lager, American pale ale, and Pierre Celis' resurrected Belgian wit. These summaries do mention the current scholarship questioning the accepted origins for porter and IPA, the usual "A-Ha!" traps beer geeks like to find.
  The book concludes with a section on the resurgence in craft brewing and an appreciation of the worldwide, American-led, craft brewing renaissance. Like a good beer, it's filling yet easy to take, and keeps you coming back for more.
• 
  Joseph R.

  Chronicling the history of beer (starting with per-historical archaeological evidence and speculation), this book gives a quick but detailed view of the origins of beer-making by ancient peoples and follows through to the modern micro-brewing revolution in the United States. The book is entertainingly written and occasionally touches on major historical events when they are in some way related to beer (like Hitler's Beer Hall Putch). The book also gives one page information sheets on all the major styles of beer (like pilsners, porters, IPAs, etc.), detailing their color, bitterness, and strength as well as good food pairings and readily accessible examples of each style.
  
  I enjoyed the book--the style of illustration is fun and creative, as is the story telling. When new elements become part of the story (like hops), how those elements are used in brewing beer are described. The occasional digs against the Catholic Church, government authorities, and big business is a little off-putting. The author definitely comes from an "independent brewing is great/big brewing is bad" perspective (the publisher is from Berkeley!) and has an anti-establishment vibe that may not bother you but I at least noticed it. Otherwise it's a great read.
• 
  Kyle Smucker

  As a fan of both graphic novels and beer, this was a delight to read. I have some qualms, though.
  
  First, the classic comic book art is my least favorite style of the medium, looking more like superman meets Mary Worth than the art comics and zines I find less predictable. However, the simple style does work well for non-fiction and there are some creative spins thrown in. Visualizing and cartooning the brewing process was especially cool.
  
  Second, this book is laughably pro-beer, crediting beer with every major triumph of man-kind, and sounding a bit like a lobbyist in the process.
  
  All in all, I learned a lot and had fun doing it. I've been to countless brewery tours and the information never really stuck. Visualizing it, the brewing process and history finally clicked. You can tell a head brewer worked on this!
• 
  Rod Brown

  Put it in comic book form, and I will pretty much read about anything, even the history of a beverage that I have only sipped a couple times in my entire life and rejected as tasting godawful. This book isn't godawful, but the reliance on hyperbole, mythology and conspiracy theory makes it of dubious value as a history even while making the early chapters sort of fun. The majority of the book is quite dry in art and writing and descends into a stiffly-illustrated concordance of every mention of beer throughout recorded time. It ends on a rah-rah note about the awesomeness of craft brewing and the golden age of beer in which we now apparently live. It's almost Christmas, so I suppose this wouldn't make a bad bathroom book to give to the beer aficionado in your life you don't know well enough to give a meaningful present.
• 
  Jane

  How did beer come to be? Why was it connected to sacred ceremonies (the answers to these two questions are related!)? Why, with all the fantastically diverse and complex varieties is it often looked down upon compared to wine? How did the different types come to be? And who thought up using hops? Answers to these puzzles and many more are delivered via great drawings, good narrative, surprisingly comprehensive ties to history, descriptions of a few brews you may wish to try, and more. If you're into craft beers, you'll find this well worth your time.
• 
  Balthasaar

  I really hate the taste of beer. This book did not change that.
  but I dig comics and my partner is a beer-snob so I got this for us to read together. And I'm very glad I did. [Thanks to
  Maria for the recommendation!]
  
  I was genuinely enthralled by how this history/taxonomy told dramatic stories of how science, technology, religion, and politics have impacted beer and brewers through the ages.
  
  Good stuff. And now I know what lots of those fancy beer words mean.
  Without having to drink allot of beer.
• 
  Adan

  A pretty good history of the world's favorite alcoholic beverage from ancient times to the modern day. It's filled with history, anecdote, and most importantly, science! It's told in an easy-to-read manner, though it can get a bit dry in some places. I did enjoy the 'Meet the Beer' sections though, where different kinds of beers were profiled in full-page spreads.
  
  I will freely admit that I probably gave this book an extra star because it has a random cameo of my small childhood hometown of Porterville, California, which is both bizarre and bizarrely exciting.
• 
  CJ - It's only a Paper Moon

  I like beer. I like graphic novels.
  
  But I'm lukewarm about this.
  
  Sort of all over the place but with a decent premise (I like to assume the grocery guy is the narrator). This had moments of decent art but the story read like a Senior research paper.
  
  It's a good novelty but it had potential that it just didn't reach.
  
  If you can get it from the library by all means do so but there are better books explaining the history of beer.
  
• 
  Beth Voecks

  Learned quite a bit about beer that I never knew and also that I much more enjoy drinking it than reading about it.