Sacramento Beer: A Craft History

Beer drinkers and aficionados will from benefit having this book in their collection, both for referencing types of beer and also for reading about craft beer history in the Sacramento region, extending far beyond the city. If your beer expertise is restricted to the pleasure of drinking the brew, Sacramento Beer is unlikely to be of benefit for you. Justin Chechourka did an admirable job researching the history of local beer from the early days on until the present. Today, with some sixty breweries in the region, demand for good craft beer is excellent. Chechourka’s book is in three distinct parts: past, present, and the future. Each part is divided into several shorter sections for ease of reading. Chechourka’s writing is good, the text is filled with quotes from people in the brewing business—in fact, a little too heavy on quoted texts. He uses many superscript numbers referring to his notes at the end of the book. The author starts with the oldest, Buffalo Brewing Company, in 1890 and continues with the first modern microbrewery in 1993, River City Brewing, then brewery research at UC Davis starting in 1958. Many good black and white and color photos illustrate the volume.