Book: Capital Beer: A Heady History of Brewing in Washington, D.C.

Description

This is the best best book on sale anywhere that covers all of Arlington brewing history AND how Arlington fits in to Washington’s brewing scene. Author Garrett Peck, covers “Alexandria County’s” infamous drinking establishments in Rosslyn and Jackson City. He traces the rise and fall of the Arlington Brewing Company in the previous century and completes the picture with a tour of craft beers and brew pubs in this century.

Here’s the blurb on the book cover: “Imagine the jubilation of thirsty citizens in 1796 when the Washington Brewery–the city’s first brewery–opened. Yet the English-style ales produced by the early breweries in the capital and in nearby Arlington and Alexandria sat heavy on the tongue in the oppressive Potomac summers. By the 1850s, an influx of German immigrants gave a frosty reprieve to their new home in the form of light but flavorful lagers. Brewer barons like Christian Heurich and Albert Carry dominated the taps of city saloons until production ground to a halt with the dry days of Prohibition. Only Heurich survived, and when the venerable institution closed in 1956, Washington, D.C., was without a brewery for fifty-five years. Author and beer scholar Garrett Peck taps this high-gravity history while introducing readers to the bold new brewers leading the capital’s recent craft beer revival.”

Author Garrett Peck is a public historian and has been a tour guide in the nation’s capital. He has written seven other books related to local history.  Peck was involved with the DC Craft Bartenders Guild in lobbying the DC City Council to have the Rickey declared Washington’s native cocktail. He researched and pinpointed the site of the Washington Brewery at Navy Yard, and is particularly proud that Green Hat Gin is named after a character Peck wrote about in his book “Prohibition in Washington, D.C.”: congressional bootlegger George Cassiday. He has lectured at the Library of Congress, the National Archives, and the Smithsonian, and often speaks at literary clubs, the Arlington Historical Society, and trade associations. He is a member of the Arlington Historical Society.

Peck graduated from the Virginia Military Institute and earned a master’s degree in international affairs at George Washington University. Peck worked more than two decades in telecom marketing and is a former U.S. Army officer.

Softcover: 188 pages with a list of breweries by location and the dates they were in operation, a bibliography, and the index

Publisher: American Palate/history Press, 2014

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