The geography of beer : regions, environment, and societies / edited by Mark Patterson and Nancy Hoalst Pullen.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Geographies of Beer -- Section 1: Regions -- The Geography of Beer in Europe from 1000 B.C. to A.D. 1000 -- The Spatial Diffusion of Beer From Its Sumerian Origins to Today -- Mapping United States Breweries 1612 to 2011 -- Local to National and Back Again: Beer, Wisconsin & Scale -- The World's Beer: The Historical Geography of Brewing in Mexico -- Geographic Appellations of Beer -- Section 2: Environment -- The Global Hop: An Agricultural Overview of the Brewer's Gold -- Sweetwater, Mountain Springs, and Great Lakes: A hydro-geography of beer brands -- A Taste of Place: Environmental Geographies of the Classic Beer Styles -- Sustainability Trends in the Regional Craft Beer Industry. Section 3: Societies -- The Origins and Diaspora of the India Pale Ale -- The Ubiquity of Good Taste: A Spatial Analysis of the Craft Brewing Industry in the United States -- Too big to ale? Globalization and consolidation in the beer industry -- Microbreweries, Place, and Identity in the United States -- Neolocalism and the Branding and Marketing of Place by Canadian Microbreweries -- Offline Brews and Online Views: Exploring the Geography of Beer Tweets.

From its roots in early civilizations to its modern role in globalization, the role of beer through time and space have influenced the culture, economics, and environments of what society has grown, produced, and consumed. This edited collection examines the various influences, relationships, and developments beer has had from distinctly spatial perspectives. The chapters explore the functions of beer and brewing from unique and sometimes overlapping historical, economic, cultural, environmental and physical viewpoints. Topics from authors -- both geographers and non-geographers alike -- have examined the influence of beer throughout history, the migration of beer on local to global scales, the dichotomous nature of global production and craft brewing, the neolocalism of craft beers, and the influence local geography has had on beer's most essential ingredients: water, starch (malt), hops, and yeast. At the core of each chapter remains the integration of spatial perspectives to effectively map the identity, changes, challenges, patterns and locales of the geographies of beer.