Beer Places: The Microgeographies of Craft Beer, edited by Daina Cheyenne Harvey, Ellis Jones, and Nathaniel G. Chapman is now available.
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.
The book is part of Food and Foodways, 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.
“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