The Great American Ale Trail - Christian DeBenedetti [177]
on all things literary and professional, especially this book, and to Mary and Tony Smith and Barky Pennick for their gracious support, hospitality, and burger- and beer-research expeditions. To the lovely and fearless Megan Flynn, for endless patience, unforgettable road trips and on-site research, draft reading and big picture dreaming, late-night pesto, pizza, Thai, and scrumptious green chile stew deliveries, and impromptu Blazer games, thank you for sharing this adventure with me. To Dana Cowin, Pam Kaufman, Ray Isle, and the heroic Jennifer Murphy of Food & Wine for believing in me and in craft beer travel and for assigning the all-important story on San Diego beer culture that led to this book. To Avery Houser, O.G., aide-de-camp, wingman, brewer, fixer, flâneur: I’d brew with you any day. To the brilliant Georgia Perry, for her Hoosier-style heroics, malarkey detection, virtuosic press release defilement, eagle-eye fact checking, and ability to say “whatever” at critical junctures: thank you for saving my bacon. To John Rasmus, who championed this journey all along, especially when the wheels came off, and for his steadfast backing during and after my days at National Geographic. To Sarah Rosenberg of ABC for always caring and making me laugh and look incredibly lazy by comparison. A very special thanks to Zoya Ihnatovich for bringing me the delicious borscht so many times, and to Joanna Agee of the Hive for making me so welcome. To Amanda Pederson for her tireless and timely research under the gun and both Bessie Seeley and Prakash Patodia and Gina Smith of Cabbage Tree for superb transcription work. A major note of thanks to Seth Fletcher and Abe Streep, for innumerable calls, insights and encouragements, visits, cold beers, hospitality, and editorial advice in the final hours. To willing galley readers Jane and Michael Stern, Mike Benoist, Mark Adams, William Bostwick, Hampton Sides, Ken Wells, Sebastian Junger, Corey Seymour, Bill Gifford, Kevin Fedarko, Brad Wieners, Jack Hitt, Liesl Schillinger, Elizabeth Hightower-Allen, Nick Fauchald, Tyghe Trimble, and Jordan Mackay: thank you. To Kasey Kordell, Brian Barker, Rachel Ritchie, and Randy Gragg of Portland Monthly, thanks for cheering me on. To dear friends Max and the rest of the Hallin Clan, especially Ingrid and Kurt, Abe and Denise Sorom, Charlie Redd, Courtney and Leather Storrs, C. Brown, Ryan Yaden, Gabriel Sherman, James Jung, The Brothers Eshak, Brian Ursino, Andrew Langham, Josh Boulange, and Huy Nguyen for easing the load. To Stephanie Dos Santos and Teresa Molitor for your calls and letters. To George Quraishi, Josh Hersh, Julian Smith, Fred Reimers, and Cliff Ransom for much needed breaks involving the consumption of beer without undue levels of note-taking. To Margo True for that unforgettable lunch at Higgins; to Greg Higgins for cooking it! To Lisa Morrison for her enthusiastic, perfectly timed encouragement and her own great book, a superb resource; to Tom Dalldorf for a great report from Alaska. To Juliet Lapidos of Slate for a thrilling first assignment on beer in the thick of it. To Christine Muhlke for her kind words and Julie Coe and Richard David Story of Departures for taking me aboard, and for assigning a story that informed this book. Lockhart Steel and Raphael Brion for the deliciousness that is Eater. To Men’s Journal for letting Seth Fletcher and I run with the annual beer package for the beer part of a decade, which helped make the case for this undertaking. To Outside and Chris Keyes for letting me dream big, A.J. Jacobs for the same reason, and to Brad Wieners and Elizabeth Hightower Allen for helping me put the rubber to the road.To Kate Lacroix for so-bad-it’s-good poetry, timely puns, IM wisdom, and book party-planning zeal. Lisa Donoughe for years of cheerful support, promotion, tips, talks, and fun book launch party plans: Thank you. I could not have done this without you. To Banks Tarver, Scott Carlin, and Gabriele Wilson for visions of small screen glory and artistic achievement. Hallie Beaune, Ray Daniels, Joshua Bernstein,