Untapped collects twelve previously unpublished essays that analyze the rise of craft beer from social and cultural perspectives. In the United States, the United Kingdom, and Western Europe there has been exponential growth in the number of small independent breweries over the past thirty years - a reversal of the corporate consolidation and narrowing of consumer choice that characterized much of the twentieth century. While there are legal and policy components involved in this shift, the contributors to Untapped ask broader questions. How does the growth of craft beer connect to trends like the farm-to-table movement, gentrification, the rise of the "creative class," and changing attitudes toward both cities and farms? How do craft beers conjure history, place, and authenticity? At perhaps the most fundamental level, how does the rise of craft beer call into being new communities that may challenge or reinscribe hierarchies based on gender, class, and race?

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.

In the United States, the United Kingdom, and Western Europe there has been exponential growth in the number of small independent breweries over the past thirty years - a reversal of the corporate consolidation and narrowing of consumer choice that characterized much of the twentieth century. While there are legal and policy components involved in this shift, the contributors to Untapped ask broader questions. How does the growth of craft beer connect to trends like the farm-to-table movement, gentrification, the rise of the "creative class," and changing attitudes toward both cities and farms? How do craft beers conjure history, place, and authenticity? At perhaps the most fundamental level, how does the rise of craft beer call into being new communities that may challenge or reinscribe hierarchies based on gender, class, and race?