The Comic Book Story of Beer: The World's Favorite Beverage from 7000 BC to Today's Craft Brewing Revolution

Jonathan Hennessey

Book cover

I thought this was just OK. There’s a lot of decent information about the history of beer, although most of it was already familiar to me. (I did, however, learn that there is now a certified Trappist monastery brewery in Spencer, Massachusetts!) Ultimately I didn’t feel like the book did anything in particular to leverage the graphic novel format–the illustrations don’t have a strong characteristic style, nor did they seem to tell the story any better than you could tell it in words. (But if you just used words, I guess it wouldn’t have been enough for a book!) Finally, negative points for some unnecessarily sexualized illustrations of women (primarily of the Sumerian beer goddess Ninkasi).

My Goodreads rating: 3 stars

IndieBound