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Craft Brewery

recently retired from the Brewers Association, that historic styles that no longer existed were cool.
makes it easy to draw a direct line from that book
to the development of the modern beer industry. At the same time, the beer industry itself was
working as hard as it possibly could to lower the
Ignore, for a moment, that many professional barrier of entry to open a brewery. As startup
brewers still brew with the dated knowledge pre- brewers were treated like royalty by eager home-
sented in that book: knowledge that still makes brewers, those brewing pioneers began to release
great homebrew but is fairly basic for a profession- books regaling fans with the tales of opening a
al brewery. The recipes presented in the book in brewery and all of their mistakes, so that you – the
the 1970s are the harbingers of the industry’s path eager reader – would not be doomed to repeat
to maturation some 15 to 20 years later. them. It seemed like writing a business book was
a prerequisite for owning a nationally-distributed
By the 1990s, in the first big boom of the craft brewery for a decade or so. Ken Grossman (Sierra
brewing industry, every brewery in the country Nevada), Sam Calagione (Dogfish Head), Jim Koch
worth its salt was putting out the same simple line- (Sam Adams), Tony Magee (Lagunitas), Steve Hindy
up: Golden Ales, Brown Ales, Pale Ales, IPAs, and (Brooklyn), Tom Schlafly (Schlafly), and James Watt
Porters or Stouts. All the flavors of beer. Breweries (Brew Dog) among others have all written books
with extra tank space might have thrown in the about starting their breweries that, to some degree
occasional lager, but since money and space were or other – mostly blatantly – encourage the read-
often limited, lagers sometimes fell by the wayside. er to believe the idea that starting a brewery is
Invention and innovation in the brewing industry an achievable task, even if you don’t know what
leapt directly from Charlie’s books. He published you’re doing.
what was probably the first pumpkin beer recipe.
He let us know that honey was a great addition to The Brewers’ Association itself followed suit by
brown ales, that fruit belonged in dark beers, and releasing a book plainly titled “Starting Your Own

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