The State of the Beer

The Van Pelt library at the University of Pennsylvania truly is the type you can get lost in. I know 'cause I did. Early in my research I discovered that there was a person named John Beale Bordley, who was a colonial hotshot and one of the first production-scale brewers in Maryland. Bordley was friendly with Thomas Jefferson and as concerned as he was about what we now call sustainable living. Part of that, for Bordley, was not having to rely upon the British for ale. After reading his book online and fumbling across some of his papers, it became clear to me that it might just be possible to find his recipe. Finding the first Eastern Shore beer recipe and including it in my book , would be a massive coup. I had to head to Philly to have my computer repaired. The best way to have your Mac die, it turns out, is to get behind on your writing schedule and then engage on a wild goose chase. The Apple people took it from me and sent it off to have the hard drive replaced. I thanked ...

In a very, very technical sense, this was the first photo taken for the book. When  +The History Press  agreed to publish my book , I was a little worried about getting the right photos. But not quite as worried as they were at first. You see, Eastern Shore Beer was to be a pretty book, as well as an informative one. I got something like 32 color pages for a photo insert and was responsible for the cover and back cover art. When they asked if I thought I could get photos I said, "Kind of." There were three problems as I saw it. First of all, beer hasn't been all that well-documented on the Eastern Shore. Certainly, it hasn't been treasured until recently, so the archives that aren't bare, aren't well marked. Secondly, there weren't the kinds of high-profile prohibition busts in the 20s as there were in metropolitan areas, therefore there were no photos of colorful characters in bowlers smirking for the camera after destroying a beer barrel.