American (beer’s) origin stories and the making of the American (beer)

The search for the origins of beer and brewing in what would become the US has been hampered by the realities of the racial, gendered, and classed inequalities that created the US in the first place. A look at the classics of US beer history (for example, Baron,1962; Downard, 1980), as well as more contemporary restatements of said creation myths (for example, Acitelli, 2013; Erickson, 1987; Hindy, 2014; Mittleman, 2008; Ogle, 2006), the influential writings of renowned beer traveler and writer Michael Jackson (for example, his three volume World Guide to Beer, 1977, 1991, and 1997), and the renowned work of Charlie Papazian, highlights a story that focuses on similar places, similar names, and similar processes, and makes similar arguments. Such books build on each other, though largely only by adding the stories of the next generation of white men, whose activities both continue the white paths laid down in a society designed to support such trajectories and, in the process, solidify the white mythology of beer and brewing, erasing the experiences of women, the poor, and racialized minorities.