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© 2011 by Christian DeBenedetti

Published by Running Press,

A Member of the Perseus Books Group

All rights reserved under the Pan-American and International Copyright Conventions.

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ISBN 978-0-7624-4375-8

Library of Congress Control Number: 2011931109

E-book ISBN 978-0-7624-4476-2

9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Digit on the right indicates the number of this printing

Cover design by Ryan Hayes

Interior design and illustration by Ryan Hayes

Edited by Jennifer Kasius

Typography: Garage Gothic, Fenway Park Gotham, and Chronicle

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Contents

Preface by Garrett Oliver

Introduction

Chapter 1: The Pacific Northwest and Alaska

Chapter 2: California and Hawaii

Chapter 3: Colorado, Montana, and the Rocky Mountains

Chapter 4: Texas and the Southwest

Chapter 5: The Midwest

Chapter 6: The Northeast

Chapter 7: The Mid-Atlantic

Chapter 8: The Southeast

The Top Tens

Postscript

Acknowledgments

Glossary

Index

Preface

WHEN THE BOARDING PASS EMERGED FROM THE WHIRRING MACHINE AT Helsinki-Vantaa Airport, I had to admit that I was relieved. I hadn’t intended things to turn out this way, but this is what always happens, and I really should have known better. Only seven hours previously, I’d been at the pub—St. Urho’s Pub, to be precise—a slightly grubby watering hole in one of lesser-known districts of Helsinki, Finland. Finns speak a language intelligible to no one else on Earth, but that has never slowed them down, especially when it comes to socializing. So now here I was, with Markku, Jussi, Kari, and a few others, telling improbable stories. I pinged my pal Matt on Facebook and told him I was drinking his beer in Helsinki. He picked up in England and pinged me back within minutes, asking how it was holding up. The beer was beautiful, and it was a fine evening—all about the ebullient company, and the company was all about the beer. St. Urho’s has more than a dozen taps, all flowing with excellent beers, lovingly kept. I didn’t mean to stay until 3:00 A.M., but that’s what you do, and the reindeer pizza really was excellent.

I’ve been lucky enough to experience many evenings like this over the years. I started in the early 1980s in London, where I first fell in love with cask-conditioned British ale. I continued across Europe, racking up epic evenings in Germany, Belgium, and the Czech Republic. In those days, there was one country where great beer was not to be found, and that was the United States. I got back home from a year abroad in 1984 and found that we Americans had nothing to drink. Somehow the United States—once home to 4,000 breweries and the most exciting and varied beer culture in the world—had lost its way among the great brewing nations. Our breweries fell prey to a form of “progress” that involved removing all the flavor from one of the world’s diverse and fascinating drinks. Like many future craft brewers, I started making my own beer at home—not because I wanted to make beer, but because I wanted to drink beer. Slowly but inevitably, beer took over my life, the slope became slippery, and I slid into the mash tun. I bobbed to the surface and never looked back.

Today, out of nothing, we have built everything. The United States is now the undisputed beer capital