On the night of April 17, 1945, Allied planes dropped 111 bombs on the Burghers' Brewery in Pilsen, Czechoslovakia, destroying much of the birthplace of pilsner, the world's most popular beer style and the bestselling alcoholic beverage of all time. Still, workers at the brewery would rally so they could have beer to toast their American, Canadian, and British liberators the following month.It was another twist in pilsner's remarkable story, one that started in a supernova of technological, political, and demographic shifts in the mid-1800s and that continues in the craft breweries of today. Tom Acitelli's Pilsner: How the Beer of Kings Changed the World tells that story.Pilsner shatters myths about pilsner's very birth and about its immediate parentage. Acitelli, author of the craft beer history The Audacity of Hops and the James Beard finalist American Wine, also pops the top on new insights into the pilsner style and into beer in general through a character-driven narrative that shows how pilsner influenced everything from modern-day advertising and marketing to today's craft-beer movement.
Discover the underdog story of how America came to dominate beer stylistically in the second edition of Tom Acitelli's The Audacity of Hops: The History of America's Craft Beer Revolution, the most comprehensive history yet of American craft beer.
Based on extensive archival research as well as interviews with the movement's key players going back to the 1960s, this acclaimed book is the most comprehensive chronicle yet of one of the most interesting and lucrative culinary trends in the U.S. since World War II.
Acitelli weaves the story of the rise of American craft beer into the tales of trends like Slow Food and the rebirth of America's urban areas, and paints an unforgettable portrait of plucky entrepreneurial triumph. The backgrounds on all your favorite craft brewers are here, including often forgotten heroes from the movement's earliest days as well as the history of homebrewing since Prohibition.
This is the 'book for the craft beer nerd who thinks he or she already knows the story' (Los Angeles Times) as well as for fans of good food and drink in general.
Discover the underdog story of the improbable rise of small-batch distilling in America. This bracingly written, fast-paced work traces the relationship of Americans to spirits such as bourbon, scotch, vodka, gin, and rum. And it presents the full story of a plucky band of entrepreneurs who disrupted the nation's conception of how those libations could appear and taste-and how much they could cost. Tom Acitelli weaves the unlikely triumph of the small-batch distilling movement into other major trends, including a neo-Prohibitionism that nearly croaked the entire thing, America's re-embrace of cocktails, and the twin rises of craft beer and fine wine. He also expertly delves into the controversies currently wracking American spirits, ones that threaten to tank the movement at the moment of what should be its greatest triumph.
