Beer Places is, most essentially, a road map for craft beer, taking readers to various locales to discover the beverage’s deep connections to place. At another level, Beer Places is an academic analysis of these geographical ties. Collected into sections that address authenticity and revitalization, politics and economics, and collectivity and collaboration, this book blends new research with a series of “postcards”: informal conversations and first-person dispatches from the field that transport readers to the spots where pints are shared, networks forged, and spaces defined.
With insight from social scientists, beer bloggers, travel writers, and food entrepreneurs who recount their experiences of taprooms, breweries, and bottle shops from North Carolina to Zimbabwe, Beer Places reveals differences in the craft beer scene across multiple geographies. Situating craft beer as an emerging and important component of food studies, the essays in this volume attest to the singular power of craft beer to connect people and places.
Daina Cheyenne Harvey is associate professor of sociology at the College of the Holy Cross. His current projects include a book about the effects of climate change on the future of apple orchards and cider production in New England.
Ellis Jones is associate professor of sociology at the College of the Holy Cross. Author of The Better World Shopping Guide: Every Dollar Makes a Difference, he studies and teaches about ethical consumerism and corporate sustainability.
Nathaniel G. Chapman is associate professor of sociology at Arkansas Tech University. The coauthor of Beer and Racism: How Beer Became White, Why It Matters, and the Movements to Change It, he writes about cultural production and consumption.
“Beer Places provides an essential collection of essays exploring how space and place matter in shaping the social phenomenon of craft beer culture. Academics and beer nerds alike will find intriguing explanations of how craft beer has shaped communities and created spaces for people to socialize and express their identities around all things beer.”
—Cameron Lippard, editor of Untapped: Exploring the Cultural Dimensions of Craft Beer
Series Editors’ Preface
Introduction: The Place of Beer
Daina Cheyenne Harvey and Julian Bakker 3
I – Authenticity and Revitalization
1. Crafting Community and Drinking “Local”: Constructing Authenticity and Identity in the Craft Beer Culture
Amanda Koontz and Nathaniel G. Chapman
POSTCARD FROM WORCESTER
Daina Cheyenne Harvey and Ellis Jones
2. From Mill District to Brewery District: Craft Beer and the Revitalization of Charlotte’s NoDa Neighborhood
Neil Reid and Isabelle Nilsson
POSTCARD FROM NEW ORLEANS
Daina Cheyenne Harvey
3. Tapping History: Crafting Identity through Retrojection in the North Carolina Triangle Craft Beer Scene
Nathan Roberts and Michaela DeSoucey
POSTCARD FROM BOULDER
Ellis Jones
4. Taproom Authenticity
Jeff Rice
POSTCARD FROM COPENHAGEN
Robert A. Saunders
II – Identity, Politics, Economics
5. Displaced Brews: Unmaking the Geography of Beer in Hyperinflationary Zimbabwe
Jeremy L. Jones
6. Landscapes of Beer Consumption in Helsinki
Kevin Drain
POSTCARD FROM A SMALL TOWN
Robin Shepard
7. “Did You Take the Tour?”: An Analysis of the Spatial Politics of New Jersey’s Craft Beer Taprooms
Robert A. Saunders and Emily A. Fogarty
8. From Consumer to Producer: Pathways to Working in Craft Beer
Christopher S. Elliott
III – Collectivity and Collaboration
9 Pop, Pour, Pass: Bottle Shares as Public Rituals
Michael Ian Borer
POSTCARD FROM “THE COLLECTIVE”
Ellis Jones
10. “This Is My Pub, This Is My Brewery”: The Growing Movement of Community-Owned Pubs and Breweries in the United Kingdom
Michele Bianchi
11. Craft Beer Ecosystem or Ecosystems? Are Craft Beer Cities Functioning Collectively or Individually?
Carolyn Keller and Saran Ghatak
POSTCARD FROM HELSINKI
Teemu Vass
12. The Collaborative/Competitive Dynamics behind Local Craft Beer Scenes
Paul-Brian McInerney, Timothy Adkins, Tony Peña, and Seth Behrends
POSTCARD FROM ALAMEDA
Dean Brightman
13. A Social Geography of Craft Breweries: Digital Representations of Brewery Collaboration Networks in Asheville, North Carolina
Rachel Skaggs and Ethan Gibbons
POSTCARD FROM EAST BRISTOL
Scott Taylor, Neil Sutherland, and Chris Land
Contributors
Index
Food and Foodways is a series from the University of Arkansas Press that explores historical and contemporary topics in global food studies. The editors are committed to representing a diverse set of voices that tell lesser known food stories and to provoking new avenues of interdisciplinary research.
