This book examines how beer reflects the structure of society's collective values, economic structures, and structural inequity. The authors explore the organization of our social world through looking at beer as a marker of identity, an object of connoisseurship, and a livelihood for those who produce and distribute it.

Beer and Society: How We Make Beer and Beer Makes Us takes readers on a lively journey through the social, cultural, and economic dimensions of the modern beer world. The book illustrates that beer is far more than a beverage. It represents a marker of identity, a source of pleasure, an object of connoisseurship, and a livelihood for those who produce and distribute it. Drawing on leading sociological and psychological perspectives, the authors argue that our enduring relationship with beer and its many varieties reflects the very roots of our society, including its collective values and norms, power structures, and inequity in race, gender, sexuality, and social class. Beer and Society explores these aspects of beer as sites of growing struggles for social change.