Baltimore Beer

Since Mary Pickersgill sewed Old Glory on the floor of a local brewery, Baltimore has been a beer-drinking town. At the turn of the nineteenth century, German immigrants erected elaborate breweries and leafy beer gardens, and the thirteen awful years of Prohibition only whetted the city’s thirst for frosty pints. By the 1950s, Gunther and National Bohemian had joined advertising forces with the Orioles and the Colts in a spirited battle with American, Free State and Arrow for the palates and wallets of the Chesapeake Bay’s burgeoning beer-drinking population. Baltimore beer scholar and journalist Rob Kasper traces the sudsy story from the days when alehouses lined the Jones Falls to the tales behind the current crop of local brewers who are fermenting a craft brew revival. Join Kasper as he uses interviews, stunning vintage images and a few recipes to pop the cap on Charm City’s brewing history.

Author Biography

Rob Kasper is a Baltimore writer. For more than three decades, he was a reporter, columnist and editorial writer for the Baltimore Sun, often writing about the area’s food and drink. In the fall of 2011, he left the newspaper to finish writing this book. He has won numerous writing awards. The Association of Food Journalists cited his 2008 food columns as among the best in American and Canadian newspapers. This marked the fifth time in two decades that his writing has been so honored by the association. He has also won two National Headliner Awards. His interest in local history and Baltimore brewers led him in 2009 to become a founding member of Baltimore Beer Week, a not-for-profit organization that celebrates the area’s brewing culture. A native of Dodge City, Kansas, he received his undergraduate degree in American studies from the University of Kansas and a master of science in journalism from Northwestern University, graduating with honors and distinction. He was a reporter for the Hammond (IN) Times and the Louisville Times newspapers before joining the Sun. He lives with his wife, Judith, a professor in the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, in a downtown Baltimore row house. They have two sons.