The best thing about "Travels With Barley" is the title of the book. That's what got me to pick it up for $1 at a library sale -- well, that and the fact that I'm a home brewer. Ironically, the author spends a lot more time on yeast and hops than he does on barley, as, apparently, those other beer ingredients are where the real action takes place.
Anyway, the book has some interesting anecdotes and observations, but in general it's kind of tedious. It's like drinking one of the mass-market beers that author Ken Wells generally decries: better than nothing, but rarely fulfilling.
Wells is a highly successful journalist, but he seems to have an unresolved need to spend a lot of time in bars. He begins by recounting his first beer at about age 8, and then he recites all the reasons why drinking in beer joints gives him a sense of camaraderie with the world. Part of his book is a quest to find, or at least to define "the perfect beer joint." I guess it's no dumber than any other self-actualization goal.
Anyway, if you buy into Wells' way of thinking, then this book has inherent charm and interest. But if you think that looking for 20-minute friendships with bartenders and beerhounds is a depressing way of life, then you wonder about the relevance of the book to your life. And let's be clear that the book is intended to be relevant to your life; it's not just "fun" reading. Remember, it's written by an editor at the "Wall Street Journal," which even in its feature articles, is primed to deliver "actionable" information for business readers.
On the positive side, Wells gives a comprehensive look at the burgeoning craft beer movement, and he explains how it has changed American brewing for the better. He does an excellent job of explaining how craft brewers breathed life into lager and returned ales, porters, and stouts to prominence. And he offers a charming vision of life spent in beer joints, sipping a few brews and watching the world go by. (How he can do that while being an editor at The Journal, writing novels, and having a wife and two kids is, frankly, beyond my comprehension. I suspect he doesn't spend a lot of time with his family.) Ultimately, Wells has an optimistic vision of America in which mass-marketing and mass-production are being challenged by people who care about originality, uniqueness, and quirks.
However, the book is repetitive, tedious, and surprisingly immature in some ways. First, there's uninteresting data (often in italics) about the size of the beer market or sub-market. Second, there's ogling of young women. In almost every bar (and in a chapter detour to Hooters), the author finds an attractive bartender or waitress who fills him with a sense of joy; that's a Wall St. Journal reader's fantasy. Third, there's the sense of privilege that comes with being part of America's elite, as when the author notes repeatedly that he was on an expense account while researching the book -- i.e., "ha ha, I'm cooler than you because I get to do this for a living." In fact, he observes a couple of times that the barflies he'd met would ask him if they could be his assistant on his quest to find the perfect beer joint.
Yep, Ken Wells has got it all: the barflies want to be like him so that they can move up in the world, and the sophisticates want to be like him so that they can get closer to the "real" people of America. Ultimately, it's that smugness that disappointed me.Get more detail about Travels with Barley: A Journey Through Beer Culture in America.
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