"A historian and trained veteran of the brewing industry, Peter H. Blum divides Detroit brewing history into seven distinct phases: the early Anglo-Saxon ale brewers, the German brewers who arrived after 1848, the rise of brewing dynasties in the 1880s, Prohibition, the return of beer in the era after repeal in 1933, the war years, and the postwar competition. Blum also includes detailed information on the way beer is produced - the craft of brewing and the tradition of master brewers.".
“Beautiful and unflinching . . . a riveting story about the fall of an American family, an American city, and possibly the American Dream itself.” —Janis Cooke Newman, author of Mary, Mrs. A. Lincoln Frances Stroh’s earliest memories are ones of great privilege: shopping trips to London and New York, lunches served by black-tied waiters at the Regency Hotel, and a house filled with precious antiques, which she was forbidden to touch. Established in Detroit in 1850, by 1984 the Stroh Brewing Company had become the largest private beer fortune in America and a brand emblematic of the American dream itself; while Stroh was coming of age, the Stroh family fortune was estimated to be worth $700 million. But behind the beautiful façade lay a crumbling foundation. Detroit’s economy collapsed with the retreat of the automotive industry to the suburbs and abroad and likewise the Stroh family found their wealth and legacy disappearing. As their fortune dissolved in little over a decade, the family was torn apart internally by divorce and one family member’s drug bust; disagreements over the management of the business; and disputes over the remaining money they possessed. Even as they turned against one another, looking for a scapegoat on whom to blame the unraveling of their family, they could not anticipate that even far greater tragedy lay in store. Featuring beautiful evocative photos throughout, Stroh’s memoir is elegantly spare in structure and mercilessly clear-eyed in its self-appraisal—at once a universally relatable family drama and a great American story. “Stroh’s absorbing memoir suggests that most cocoons are permeable and that privilege is relative.” —The New York Times Book Review
Michigan's beer history is as diverse as the breweries themselves, and the stories behind them are as fascinating as their tasty concoctions. A few enterprising women found themselves at the forefront of early brewing in the state, and several early Detroit brewers also served as mayor. Pfeiffer's mascot was designed by Walt Disney Studios. Jackson's Eberle Brewing Company took its fight against local prohibition all the way to the Supreme Court, and the Silver Foam trademark embroiled disputants in a different legal fight. Renowned modern craft brewers grew from humble beginnings, often staving off financial disaster, to establish themselves as local, or even national, juggernauts. Grab your favorite brew and join author Patti F. Smith for a look at Michigan's distant brewing past and its recent triumphs.
Goose Island opened as a family-owned Chicago brewpub in the late 1980s, and it soon became one of the most inventive breweries in the world. In the golden age of light, bland and cheap beers, John Hall and his son Greg brought European flavors to America. With distribution in two dozen states, two brewpubs and status as one of the 20 biggest breweries in the United States, Goose Island became an American success story and was a champion of craft beer. Then, on March 28, 2011, the Halls sold the brewery to Anheuser-Busch InBev, maker of Budweiser, the least craft-like beer imaginable. The sale forced the industry to reckon with craft beer's mainstream appeal and a popularity few envisioned. Josh Noel broke the news of the sale in the Chicago Tribune, and he covered the resulting backlash from Chicagoans and beer fanatics across the country as the discussion escalated into an intellectual craft beer war. Anheuser-Busch has since bought nine other craft breweries, and from among the outcry rises a question that Noel addresses through personal anecdotes from industry leaders: how should a brewery grow?
Will Anderson and Elizabeth Hume get caught up in the political turmoil over women's suffrage in Detroit Shuffle, the fourth book in D. E. Johnson's critically acclaimed 1910s Detroit series Will Anderson inadvertently breaks up a key suffrage rally when he thwarts a gunman set on killing his lover, Elizabeth Hume. No one else saw the man, and Elizabeth believes he hallucinated the entire incident, a side effect of the radium "treatment" he received at Eloise Hospital. She asks him to sit on the sidelines while she and her companions try to get the women's suffrage amendment passed by Michigan voters. Instead, Will sets out to protect Elizabeth and prove his sanity. Will's nemesis, Sapphira Xanakis, contacts him with news of a conspiracy to defeat the amendment, led by Andrew Murphy, head of the Michigan Licensed Beverage Association. Against his better judgment, Will believes she is trying to help. The man she directs him to dies under suspicious circumstances. An old acquaintance of Will's, who is working for the MLBA, is shot and killed in front of him. Still, no one believes Will, including his former ally, Detective Riordan, who not only is unwilling to help, but seems to have secrets of his own. With new death threats against Elizabeth and the next rally only a few days away, Will has to unravel a complicated tapestry of blackmail, double-dealing, conspiracy, and murder—before the killer has his next chance to strike. Johnson's immaculate plotting and high-tension writing make for a spellbinding read set in early twentieth-century Detroit.
A young college grad buys a house in Detroit for $500 and attempts to restore it—and his new neighborhood—to its original glory in this “deeply felt, sharply observed personal quest to create meaning and community out of the fallen…A standout” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review). Drew Philp, an idealistic college student from a working-class Michigan family, decides to live where he can make a difference. He sets his sights on Detroit, the failed metropolis of abandoned buildings, widespread poverty, and rampant crime. Arriving with no job, no friends, and no money, Philp buys a ramshackle house for five hundred dollars in the east side neighborhood known as Poletown. The roomy Queen Anne he now owns is little more than a clapboard shell on a crumbling brick foundation, missing windows, heat, water, electricity, and a functional roof. A $500 House in Detroit is Philp’s raw and earnest account of rebuilding everything but the frame of his house, nail by nail and room by room. “Philp is a great storyteller…[and his] engrossing” (Booklist) tale is also of a young man finding his footing in the city, the country, and his own generation. We witness his concept of Detroit shift, expand, and evolve as his plan to save the city gives way to a life forged from political meaning, personal connection, and collective purpose. As he assimilates into the community of Detroiters around him, Philp guides readers through the city’s vibrant history and engages in urgent conversations about gentrification, racial tensions, and class warfare. Part social history, part brash generational statement, part comeback story, A $500 House in Detroit “shines [in its depiction of] the ‘radical neighborliness’ of ordinary people in desperate circumstances” (Publishers Weekly). This is an unforgettable, intimate account of the tentative revival of an American city and a glimpse at a new way forward for generations to come.
A celebration of Michigan craft beer. Brewed in Michigan: The New Golden Age of Brewing in the Great Beer State is William Rapai's "Ode on a Grecian Urn"—a discussion of art and art's audience. The art in this case is beer. Craft beer. Michigan craft beer, to be exact. Like the Great Lakes and the automobile, beer has become a part of Michigan's identity. In 2016, Michigan ranked fifth in the number of craft breweries in the nation and tenth in the nation in craft beer production. Craft brewing now contributes more than $1.8 billion annually to the state's economy and is proving to be an economic catalyst, helping to revive declining cities and invigorate neighborhoods. This book is not a beer-tasting guide. Instead, Rapai aims to highlight the unique forces behind and exceptional attributes of the leading craft breweries in Michigan. Through a series of interviews with brewmasters over an eighteenth-month sojourn to microbreweries around the state, the author argues that Michigan craft beer is brewed by individuals with a passion for excellence who refuse to be process drones. It is brewed by people who have created a culture that values quality over quantity and measures tradition and innovation in equal parts. Similarly, the taprooms associated with these craft breweries have become a conduit for conversation—places for people to gather and discuss current events, raise money for charities, and search for ways to improve their communities. They're places where strangers become friends, friends fall in love, and lovers get married. These brewpubs and taprooms are an example in resourcefulness—renovating old churches and abandoned auto dealerships in Michigan's biggest cities, tiny suburbs, working-class neighborhoods, and farm towns. Beer, as it turns out, can be the lifeblood of a community. Brewed in Michigan is a book for beer enthusiasts and for people who want a better understanding of what makes Michigan beer special. Cheers!
Brewing came to the Upper Peninsula in the 1600s, when French fur traders substituted pine needles for hops in batches of spruce beer. Promoted as a health drink, the evergreen suds remained in favor with the British army when it occupied the region. German immigrants drawn in by the mining boom introduced more variety to the area's fermented beverage selection, and the first of many commercial breweries opened in Sault Ste. Marie in 1850. Today, Keweenaw, Blackrocks and Ore Dock Brewing Companies are a few of the local craft brewers canning, bottling and shipping the malty flavor of the Peninsula throughout Michigan, Wisconsin and beyond. Book jacket.
Ann Arbor has always been a beer-loving town. From the establishment of the first commercial brewery in 1838 through a century of German immigration down to today's local craft brew boom, the amber liquid looms large in Tree Town's quirky past and present. Find out how beer helped a former University of Michigan professor win a Nobel Prize. Discover the Ann Arbor doctor whose nationally bestselling home remedy book featured ale recipes. Learn which Michigan football legend pounded brewskis as part of his training regimen. Covering the exploits of famous poets, performers and prohibitionists, local author David Bardallis pops the cap off the big beer history of this little college town and leads readers to "the best beer you can drink" in Ann Arbor today.
“Bitter Brew deftly chronicles the contentious succession of kings in a uniquely American dynasty. You’ll never crack open a six again without thinking of this book.” —John Sayles, Director of Eight Men Out and author of A Moment in the Sun The creators of Budweiser and Michelob beers, the Anheuser-Busch company is one of the wealthiest, most colorful and enduring family dynasties in the history of American commerce. In Bitter Brew, critically acclaimed journalist William Knoedelseder tells the riveting, often scandalous saga of the rise and fall of the dysfunctional Busch family—an epic tale of prosperity, profligacy, hubris, and the dark consequences of success that spans three centuries, from the open salvos of the Civil War to the present day.
