Breweries of Wisconsin Hardback

Wisconsin licence plates hail the state as "America's Dairyland".

It would be equally appropriate if the plates read "America's Beer Garden", because Wisconsin and beer-brewing are virtually synonymous.

The state has given the USA more of its most prominent national brands - Miller, Blatz, Schiltz and Pabst, to name but a few - than any other region.

But within Wisconsin , beer-making has been a thriving industry as well, from cottage size to colossus, and it would be a brave person who would start a tavern argument in favour of, say, Garten Brau, knowing that loyal defenders of Point or Huber, Leinenkugels or Chippewa Pride, Rhinelander or Miller, were all around.

Indeed there have probably been more beers born in Wisconsin than whiskies in Scotland.

This book is their story. It is the story first of the European immigrants who brought master brewing skills to the frontier in the early 19th century and of the origin and growth of the modern industrial giants. Between 1840 and 1960, Wisconsin saw a rich history of growth (and decline), of technological innovation, of the emergence of the parallel industries from agriculture to advertising, of movements such as Prohibition and the Anti-Saloon league, of the struggle between the independents and the conglomerates and of colourful personalities in Wisconsin's history who enlivened the scene: Joseph Huber, Valentine Blatz, the Miller and Pabst families and all the others.

All are brought vividly to life in these pages. Foremost, however, this is a Wisconsin story: tiny rural communities that became brewing metropolises, pioneers who built fortunes and traditions that are part of Wisconsin culture to this day, the evolution of the taverns, the brewery buildings themselves as period artifact and art form, and the consumers whose thirst for beer made the whole history possible. "Breweries of Wisconsin" also includes a list of every brewery and beer in the state's history and quiz items.