Travels with Barley (39 page)

The author acknowledges that for the purposes of this book he has used, with considerable literary license, the term “beer joint” throughout and applied it to establishments that may more usually refer to themselves as bars, saloons, taverns, pubs, diners, and roadhouses.

Interview methods: In all cases, I identified myself as a
Wall Street Journal
reporter writing a book about beer. My preference was to use the first and last name of all interview subjects included in this book. In a few cases, I've used only first names, either because of the informality of the setting, the nature of the encounter, or because the subjects only proffered a first name.

As the reader will see, the author made full use of that marvelous new research tool called the Internet, which puts vast stores of knowledge previously stuffed in libraries and newspaper and magazine morgues at a writer's fingertips. As a
Wall Street Journal
reporter, I also had access to the huge Dow Jones-Reuters searchable electronic database known as Factiva.

Introduction: Why Beer, Why Me?

Statistics on the size and contribution of the U.S. beer industry to the nation's economy come primarily from two sources: “Beer Serves America,” a 2003 report published jointly by the Beer Institute of Washington, D.C, and the National Beer Wholesalers Association (NBWA) of Alexandria, Virginia, and the 2003 edition of “Beer Is Volume with Profit: Comprehensive Facts on the U.S. Beer Industry,” published by SABMiller Brewing Co. of Milwaukee. Where possible I checked such figures with independent sources and against statistics published in a variety of independent publications, including the
Wall Street Journal
. The $144 billion figure for the GNP of beer is taken from the “Beer Serves America” report and is a product of statistical modeling.

Comparative country GDP comes from the U.S. State Department Country Commercial Guides; gross state product comparisons come from the U.S. Department of Commerce's Bureau of Economic Analysis, “Gross State Products, 1991-2000.”

“Beer Is Volume with Profit,” edited by Joan Zitzke, sales communications manager of SABMiller, also provides the lion's share of the demographic, sales, and per capita beer consumption statistics in this section and other chapters. In interviews with beer experts, this report was repeatedly cited as among the best, most comprehensive, and clearest sources of beer statistical information in the country.

Most historical information for this section comes from the Beer Institute's online report, “Beer Facts.” The introduction and rise of lager in America is referenced in numerous sources, including “A Short History of Beer in America” by Gregg Smith for the Brewer's Association of America (BAA), a Durham, North Carolina, trade group; “The History of Pale Lager” at www.mrbeer.com, a seller of homebrewing kits and equipment; a July 2002 cover story by Max Rudin in
American Heritage
magazine called “Beer and America” “The Birth of Lager” by Michael Jackson on his www.beerhunter.com Web site; “The Rise of the Beer Barons,” a 1999 article by Carl H. Miller in
All About Beer
magazine; and “The Rise of Lager Beer” chapter in the seminal 1909 book
American Beer: Glimpses of Its History, and Descriptions of Its Manufacture
by G. Thomann of the United States Brewers' Association. (The book is reprinted in full at http://brewery.org, an Internet site for homebrewing enthusiasts.) I also drew from these sources for Chapter 5, my abridged history of America's River of Beer and the forces that shaped it.

Statistics on craft beer market share come from the BAA and the Association of Brewers, another craft beer trade group, in Boulder, Colorado.

Chapter 1: Anatomy of a Beer Spill

There are no notes on sources for Chapter 1; it is based completely on original research and reporting.

Chapter 2: The Quest Begins

Statistics on dry counties in America are courtesy of the Distilled Spirits Council of the United Sates in Washington, D.C. Statistics on the Mississippi River are taken from a report, “Educational Facts About the Mississippi,” by the Mississippi River Parkway Commission, Minneapolis, Minnesota. A passage on the history of the beer joint in America was drawn from numerous sources, notably a “History of American Beer” timeline by BeerAdvocate.com and the Beer Institute's “Beer Facts” report. The Tun Tavern's place in U.S. Marine Corps history is a ubiquitously known bit of beer history; you can find interesting details on the history link at Tun.Tavern.com (the Philadelphia tavern, by the way, is still in operation).

For information on the sea change in U.S. beer-buying patterns, I relied heavily on the SABMiller report, “Beer Is Volume with Profit.” Contemporary and historical information about Stillwater, Minnesota, comes from the town's official Web site and from a companion Web site, www.stillwatertraveler.com

Chapter 3: A Diversion to Consider the Beer Cure

For the brief segment on the history of craft brewing in America, I supplemented original sources with BeerAdvocate's “History of American Beer” timeline; the 2002 Institute for Brewing Studies “Craft Beer Industry Statistics” and an Association of Brewers synopsis called “History of Craft Brewing.” That, and other historical and contemporary information on craft brewing, can be found at the Association of Brewers' Web site, www.Beertown.org.

Statistics on the number of people in America who drink some form of alcohol come from the federal government's “2002 Survey of Drug Use and Health.” Statistics on total U.S. alcohol consumption are drawn from a variety of sources, among them a 2003 National Institutes of Health report by its Office of Research on Women's Health titled, “Alcohol: A Women's Health Issue.”

Chapter 4: On the Road Again

Information on the cobbling together of the Great River Road and the historical anecdotes comes largely from the Great River Road link of the Mississippi River Parkway Commission's Web site.

I supplemented information gleaned from interviews on Winona, Minnesota, with material from visitwinona.com, the official Web site of the Winona Convention and Visitors Bureau. Population, historical, and other information on La Crosse, Wisconsin, was likewise supplemented with materials from www.explorelacrosse.com, that city's official convention and visitors bureau Web site. Among the most useful sites for historical information on the game of lacrosse is www.e-lacrosse.com, an online lacrosse magazine.

For a passage on the past and recent history on Pabst Brewing Co., I relied on information from a phone interview with Pabst chief executive officer Brian Kovalchuk and a number of stories in the
Wall Street Journal
's archives. The number and names of the Pabst labels brewed comes from the Pabst official Web site, www.pabst.com. The most recent revenue data on Pabst comes from a December 2003 report by
Hoover's Company Profiles
, a closely held business information concern. Pabst's appeal as a “hipster” beer was a thread I picked up from a number of disparate interviews along the River of Beer. In doing background research, I found it first mentioned in an
Atlanta Constitution
article in 1999; it has since been written about by, among other publications, the
Washington Post
and the
New York Times Magazine
.

Chapter 5: The Plymouth Rock Beer Detour

This chapter drew upon original reporting and a multiplicity of sources, a number of them already enumerated in the notes on Chapter 2 regarding the rise and dominance of lager in the U.S. and world beer markets. Also, the previously referenced BAA treatise, “A Short History of Beer in America,” and Max Rudin's “Beer in America” piece in
American Heritage
magazine both provided excellent overviews for a scribe looking to get a handle on beer history. I also drew from several helpful historical timelines: “History of American Beer/Beer 101” at BeerAdvocate.com; “A Chronology of the American Brewing Industry” at BeerHistory.com and reprinted from the book
American Breweries II
by Dale P. Van Wieren; “A Concise Timeline of Beer History” by Linda Raley at BeerBooks.com.

I got supplemental information on the Pilgrims' landing and beer deprivation in the New World by reading parts of William Bradford's
History of Plymouth Plantation
published in 1650.

A very good synopsis of the Sauer-Braidwood argument can be read online by clicking the library links section at www.brewingtech niques.com.

The Odai Hussein beer find is based upon an April 2003 Associated Press account filed during the invasion of Iraq.

A full account of the Ninkasi beer experiment by Fritz Maytag and Solomon Katz can be found in the July/August 1991 edition of the journal
Archaeology
.

A good overview on the discovery of ancient Egyptian beer recipes and the efforts of Scottish & Newcastle to brew the Tutankhamen Ale is an article by Robert Protz called “Brew Like an Egyptian.” It can be found in the online archives of
Ale Street News
at www.alestreetnews.com.

Some details on the King Midas brewing project I gleaned from Dr. McGovern during an interview at Dogfish Head Craft Brewery. For a fuller account, I recommend “Recreating King Midas's Golden Elixir” by Gregg Glaser in the July 2002 edition of
Modern Brewery Age
.

The narrative chronology of beer from the eighth century through Victorian times drew upon many of the aforementioned timelines and overviews, plus the G. Thomann book
American Beer
. Other sources include
The Secret Life of Beer
, a 1995 book by Alan D. Eames;
Beer in America: The Early Years, 1587-1840
, published in 1998 by Gregg Smith; and
American Breweries II
published in 1995 by Dale P. Van Wieren. The Finnish Kalevala, replete with its beer references, can be found online in full at finlit.fi/kalevala.

Vassar College hasn't forgotten its founder. Matthew Vassar's contributions to his namesake college, and the nature of their origins, can be found on the Vassar Web site at www.vassar.edu. Other sources for the passage on the rise of lager and the lager barons are referenced above and in the notes on the introduction.

An excellent overview of Prohibition and the causes that led to it, plus Richard P. Hobson's broadside against beer and alcohol, can be read in full on the “Clash of Cultures” link on the Ohio State University History Department's Web site at http://history.osu.edu.

Chapter 6: The Quest Continues

Basic demographic and historical information on Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin, comes from its official Web site, www.villageprofile.com/wisconsin/prairieduchien; information on Buffalo Bill's appearance and the Great Railroad Excursion was gleaned from, among other sources, the history link of www.prairieduchien.org.

To supplement my reporting done on visits to Dubuque, Iowa's, visitors center and the National Mississippi River Museum, I consulted the official city Web site, www.dubuquechamber.com. Al Capone's ownership of the Julien Inn is still widely known in Dubuque and is referenced on the hotel's Web site, www.julieninn.com. There are numerous accounts of Capone's brewing days in Chicago and his connection to Sieben's, including good ones at crimelibrary.com and alcaponemuseum.com.

As of this writing, a recipe for Capone's Prohibition Lager ostensibly made at the Sieben Brewery in 1924 could be found at www.char acterevents.com/caponebeer.html.

Per capita beer consumption figures and rankings for Iowa, Wisconsin, and New Hampshire come from the 2003 SABMiller report, “Beer Is Volume with Profit.”

Chapter 7: A Side Trip Deep into the Lair of Extreme Beer

Figures on the estimated current number of craft breweries and brewpubs in the U.S. are based on surveys by the Brewers' Association of America and the Association of Brewers. The estimate that the craft brew movement has put perhaps 10,000 individual new beers on the market is an educated guess based on an assumption that each of the 1,500 craft breweries and brewpubs today offers an average of six to eight beers.

Chapter 8: Back on the River of Beer

Data on flood mitigation efforts in Louisa County, Iowa, comes from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and online reports by the Iowa Emergency Management Division.

Supplemental statistics on the Latter-day Saints Temple at Nauvoo, Illinois, are taken from the church's media Web site at www.lds.org. To refresh my previous reporting on the Mormon church for the
Wall Street Journal
, I brushed up on some historical facts by reading the official church history on the Latter-day Saints Web site and perusing an excellent online synopsis done by the Public Broadcasting Service in tandem with a 1999 PBS documentary on Joseph Smith called
American Prophet
. Details can be found at www.pbs.org/americanprophet.