A short shelf, and why that matters6 books stand behind several thousand brewery records, and only 2were read here. That is the archive's clearest weakness. Most of what is recorded rests on registries, first-party sites, newspapers and institutional archives rather than published history — defensible for a brewery that opened in 2019, much less so for one that closed in 1893. Growing the first two sections below is the single change that would most improve this archive, and it is why the correspondence with historical societies matters more than any import. The third section is a reading list, and is marked as one.
Consulted directly. A claim citing one of these was checked against the text.
The Bixel Brewery: A Brief History of Columbia's First Brewery
Louis "Pat" Kelly · The Quarterly, Tuolumne County Historical Society (now Chispa)
California — Tuolumne County
The whole documented history of the Bixel brewery at Columbia — the 1852 Rocher brewery at Spring Gulch, the 1854 fire, the sale of equipment to Antone Bixel, the 1880 fire, the limestone fermentation cellar floored with Columbia marble, and the four generations who ran it until it closed between 1908 and 1915. Pages 175–176.
A county historical society journal, not a trade book. Held by the Tuolumne County Historical Society, which also holds the objects catalogued on the brewery's record here. Not sold through general booksellers.
Dictionary of Canadian Biography
University of Toronto / Université Laval
Canada — biography
The William Dow entry in volume 9 established that Dow was foreman at Thomas Dunn's Montreal brewery, a partner by November 1829, and that the firm became William Dow and Company in 1834 — the year of Dunn's death. It corrected a date this archive had wrong, and separated two different men named Thomas Dunn.
Free to read online in English and French. There is nothing to buy and no reason to link anywhere else.
This archive has not opened these. They sit behind the timelines that our records actually rest on, and they are listed because a citation chain that stops at the intermediary hides where the work was really done. Both were named at the request of the archivists who pointed us at them.
Beer Barons of BC
Bill Wilson
British Columbia
The principal published history behind SFU Archives' British Columbia brewing timelines, particularly for the period before 2011. This archive's BC records rest on those timelines, which rest on this book. Named at SFU's request so the chain is visible rather than implied.
Out of print. Most reliably found through second-hand booksellers; SFU Archives holds it.
Directory of Canadian Breweries
Richard Sweet
Canada
Drawn on heavily by Bill Wilson in Beer Barons of BC, and through Wilson it underlies much of what SFU Archives records for British Columbia. It sits two steps upstream of the records that cite it.
Out of print and scarce. Held by research libraries rather than sold.
The Brewing Industry: A Guide to Historical Records
Lesley Richmond and Alison Turton · Manchester University Press
United Kingdom — archival records
The standard finding aid to British brewing archives — which companies' records survive, what they contain and where they are held. Reached this archive through Brewery History Society correspondence rather than directly: it is the cited origin of the 1713 date for the Old Brewery in Cardiff. For an archive whose hardest problem is finding primary evidence for closed breweries, this is the index to that evidence.
Out of print; held in most major UK research libraries.
Brains 125 Years
Brian Glover · Breedon Books
United Kingdom — Cardiff, one brewery
The published history behind this archive's Brains record. Three claims here rest on it: that a pub brewhouse stood on the Old Brewery site in 1713 but is given no name, that James Walters is the first common brewer recorded there in 1813, and the century-long gap between the two. Cited only as "Glover's history of Brains" until Mike Brown of the Brewery History Society supplied the exact edition, which is what turns those claims from attributable into checkable.
ISBN 978-1-85983-606-4. Reached this archive through Brewery History Society correspondence rather than directly.
The canonical literature on beer. Listed because anyone reading this far deserves to know what the field's reference books are — and marked separately because not one claim in this archive rests on any of them. They are recommendations, not sources, and a shelf that blurred the two would be exactly the kind of implied authority this archive exists to avoid.
The Beer Bible
Jeff Alworth · Workman Publishing
Global — styles and their origins
The most readable single-volume guide to how the world's beer styles came to exist, organised by family rather than by country. Now in a second edition. The usual recommendation for someone who wants one book.
In print. Widely available new.
The Oxford Companion to Beer
Edited by Garrett Oliver · Oxford University Press
Global — encyclopaedic reference
The only encyclopaedia of beer with a university press behind it, with over a thousand entries from several hundred contributors. It is also, and this matters here, the reference work that drew sustained public criticism from beer historians over factual errors in its historical entries after publication. Use it as a starting point and check anything historical against a second source — which is the same rule this archive applies to itself.
In print. Widely available new.
Tasting Beer
Randy Mosher
Sensory evaluation
The standard text on how to actually taste beer — what the senses are doing, where flavours come from in the process, and how to describe them without inventing vocabulary.
In print. Widely available new.
Radical Brewing
Randy Mosher
Homebrewing — historical and experimental
Where the historical styles come from for most brewers who revive them. Heavy on the odd, the extinct and the pre-industrial, which makes it the closest thing on this shelf to what this archive is for.
In print.
How to Brew
John Palmer
Homebrewing — technical
The standard technical handbook, taking a brewer from a first kitchen batch through to water chemistry. Successive editions have kept it current.
In print. An older edition is also freely readable online.
The Brewmaster's Table
Garrett Oliver
Food and beer
The book that made the case for beer at the table as seriously as wine, written by the Brooklyn Brewery brewmaster. Still the reference for pairing.
In print.
The World Atlas of Beer
Tim Webb and Stephen Beaumont
Global — geography
Beer arranged by place rather than by style, which is the arrangement this archive also uses. Useful for understanding why a region brews what it brews.
In print. Revised across several editions.
The Complete Joy of Homebrewing
Charlie Papazian
Homebrewing — foundational
The book that taught most of a generation of American homebrewers, and through them a large share of the founders in the craft brewery records here. Historically important beyond its instructions.
In print.
Designing Great Beers
Ray Daniels · Brewers Publications
Recipe formulation
Style-by-style recipe formulation built on analysis of historical and competition data rather than on received wisdom. Its author later founded the Cicerone Certification Program.
In print.
The Molsons: Their Lives and Times, 1780–2000
Karen Molson
Canada — Montreal, family and industry
Two centuries of the family that founded North America's oldest brewery, written by a seventh-generation descendant working from private family letters, diaries and records — material no public archive holds. It covers what the brewery paid for as much as the brewery itself: the Accommodation and the St Lawrence steamboat trade, Molsons Bank, the Champlain and St Lawrence Railroad, the Montreal General Hospital. This archive holds four Molson records and has read none of it.
In print. The strongest single candidate for the first book this archive actually works from — a brewery it already holds, a city it holds deeply, and private papers behind it.
Bitter Brew: The Rise and Fall of Anheuser-Busch and America's Kings of Beer
William Knoedelseder · Harper Business
United States — St Louis, family and industry
Five generations of the Busch family and the company they built, from the 1860s to the loss of it. The American counterpart to the Molson story: a brewing dynasty that shaped a city, and a family whose private troubles turn out to be inseparable from the business decisions. Ends where Dethroning the King begins.
In print.
Dethroning the King: The Hostile Takeover of Anheuser-Busch, an American Icon
Julie MacIntosh · John Wiley & Sons
Global — ownership and consolidation
The 2008 InBev takeover of Anheuser-Busch, reported from inside the deal. This is the most useful book on this shelf for what the archive actually does: /who-owns states in a single line that AB InBev holds Budweiser, and this is the several-hundred-page account of how that line came to be true — the board dysfunction, the financing, and the weeks it took to move a company most Americans assumed was permanent.
In print.
Beer Blast: The Inside Story of the Brewing Industry's Bizarre Battles for Your Money
Philip Van Munching · Random House
United States — marketing and the beer wars
The American marketing wars of the 1980s and 1990s, written by someone whose family imported Heineken into the United States — so an insider account rather than a reconstruction. Useful here because the archive records what breweries made and rarely how they were sold, and for the macro era the selling is most of the story.
Out of print; readily found second-hand. Also issued as an audiobook.
Where a book is in print and for sale, links here may earn this archive a commission, and any such link is marked. Nothing on this page is listed because it pays — three of the four cannot be bought new at all, and one is free to read. Books are chosen for what they establish, the same way everything else here is chosen.
