Just finished reading Travels With Barley: A Journey Through Beer Culture in America by Ken Wells. And a fine, fine read it was. Probably wouldn't be of as much interest to those not at least partly of the beer geek mindset. Not necessarily, though. I've read and enjoyed books that were all about stuff I knew nothing about, places I had not interest in going, or things I'd pay good money to avoid doing. But I digress. The book looks at both the big bizness of beer (Bud, Miller, etc) and the craft beer and homebrew movement. Wells does a good job telling the story of Big Beer but it's clear his heart is with the beer geeks. But that's okay cos so is mine (he says, finishing a Black Hawk Stout). I particularly enjoyed the chapter where he goes to Dogfish Head Brewery up in Delaware, one of my favorite craft brewers. In fact, I'm pretty sure that the beer he's writing about (120 Minute IPA) was one of the ones Dogfish was pouring at the beerfest I went to in Durham a couple years ago. One of the other things I took away from the book was a strong desire to visit Portland, Oregon. Perhaps it was the description of the Lucky Labrador, a brewpub where your dog is as welcome as you are.