Grand Rapids Beer: An Intoxicating History of River City Brewing

by Patrick Evans

In the nineteenth century, dozens of local breweries worked tirelessly to slake the thirst of the rapidly growing city of Grand Rapids. Grand Rapids Brewing Company, along with other savvy barley merchants, established a beer culture that would dominate Western Michigan until Prohibition turned off the spigots. After the repeal of the Noble Experiment, gigantic national brands stunted the growth of area breweries for decades, but the contemporary craft brew renaissance turned Furniture City back into Beer City, USA. Tour local operations like Founders and HopCat with veteran hophead Patrick Evans and enjoy the rich heritage of Grand Rapids beer.

176 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2015

About the author

Patrick Evans lives in Christchurch and has taught New Zealand literature at the University of Canterbury since 1978.

Reviews

[Josh Avery · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a nice history of the GR craft beer scene. Pat Evans hit everything from soup to nuts and kept it relatively unbiased, which is nice. As a former GR craft beer man about town, it was really nice to see a few of my good friends mentioned as important parts of the GR craft beer scene.

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

My list of restaurants/pubs/breweries in my hometown has grown exponentially after reading this book!

[James · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting read. It's nice to see the history of beer in Grand Rapids. The writing is amateurish at best. It is mostly just historical facts without a lot of meat in the story. He occasionally begins to tell a story, but then just drops off and changes the subject. Or he begins to tell one and there really isn't anything to tell--so why bother?

Here is an example, but there are plenty to choose from. From p.24: "A sad incident involving Kusterer's company occurred when one of the beer wagon ran over a boy at the corner of Bronson and Canal streets. The April 12, 1880 Grand Rapids Daily Leader said that it was first thought the boy was seriously injured, but it turned out he just had a few bruises."

I was also interested in what happened to the industry during the prohibition years. But the book covers pre and post-prohibition, but next to nothing about during.

The latter part of the book is much better. It gives a good overview of many of the more popular breweries and pubs in GR. Very informative.

I know this book is getting rave reviews in GR, but that's the way it goes with anything mediocre in Grand Rapids. It gets over-inflated in the never-ending striving to come off as a little Chicago or NY.

It's OK, and it may make the GR best-seller list. But it's just not that good.

Available at the Kent County Public Library

[River · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book is pretty poorly written and packaged. It's very thinly researched relying primarily on newspaper accounts, various "well-known" history books about Grand Rapids, and brewers themselves.

It's a prime example of the relatively low quality titles that get published as "local history" by The History Press. They've published similar titles on brewing in cities across the US and seem primarily concerned with publishing a plethora of thin books on popular topics (alcohol, business, murder, restaurants). It would be nice if there was a publishing house committed to quality historical research centered on local/regional topics, but this publisher seems more concerned with what sells rather than quality.