Besides my liking for a good brew, what first attracted me to this book was its title. A lifelong John Steinbeck fan, I was intrigued by its similarity to Steinbeck's "Travels with Charley", which turns out to be the author's intent also.
However, "The Quest for the Perfect Beer Joint" this ain't.
Rather, the 'quest' is more of an excuse to examine the history of American beer, as well as the on-going war between the major brewers of "American Standard Lager" and the craft brewers, who experiment seeking the perfect brew. The book is also loaded with more beer trivia than most beer drinkers would probably care for. In all this, the book is, in my humble opinion, a success, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. In fact, I only read the chapters devoted to looking for beer joints so I get to the chapters on the real purpose of the book. I would have skipped the beer-joint chapters, except they also have lots of information on the history, brewing wars and trivia.
If you enjoy beer, you will like this book.
Note: while not an expert on St. Louis beer joints, I do have friends there. They were astounded that the author only visited the Anheuser-Busch brewery and a mediocre tavern. This reinforced my belief that the real purpose of the book was as I stated above.
Final note: This book convinced me to expand my selection of beers to once again include ales. I have to admit that in my younger years I did not like beer, but over the past few years, my liking for a beer with supper has improved my meals and disposition. Previously, I was concentrating on lagers. This year, I also 'discovered' shandys, beers with citrus. As a Floridian, I relish the refreshing taste of a good shandy, despite its low alcoholic content, but perhaps that is part of the attraction.
It is a pretty good book about beer culture. I enjoyed the read because I consider myself a beer historian and collector.
A lot of the information is dated now and a lot of the breweries or sites no longer stand as described.
