We receive a lot of books here at the American Craft Beer offices. Maybe it’s because we cover the craft beer lifestyle from a different perspective- that we just don’t just write about the beers we’re drinking – that we write about all the things we talk about while we’re drinking. But whatever the reasons publishers have noticed our unique audience and send us all kinds of books to review.

So welcome to yet another edition of Good Books…Our guide to new books on beer or anything else that we’re reading and enjoying.

Sometimes we do several books in this column. Other times a book demands that we give it our total attention.  And if you care about craft beer and how the craft beer movement came about, then Steve Hindy’s The Craft Beer Revolution: How a Band of Microbrewers Is Transforming the World’s Favorite Drink  is essential reading.

The Craft Beer Revolution is an insider’s look at forty years of craft beer history. It tells the scrappy stories of the individuals who started it all, and how a band of homebrewers and microbrewers came together to create what the industry is today.

Unlike so many books on craft beer that have come our way, this book doesn’t read like an oral history that was dictated to a ghost writer, and there’s a reason for that.  In addition to be to having co-founded the Brooklyn Brewery, Steve Hindy was a journalist in a previous life and it shows. His writing is crisp, his stories are colorful, well ordered and perceptive and it doesn’t hurt that he was actually at many of the events that proved so important to today’s craft beer movement.

Hindy’s book is as complete a history of our industry as we’ve come across. In addition to chronicling it’s pioneers and craft beer’s first generation (Fritz Maytag, Jack McAuliffe, Ken Grossman just to name a few) The Craft Beer Revolution delves into later eras that were no less important to the craft beer’s development. We found his chapter on craft beer in the late eighties, The Class of ’88, fascinating and also enjoyed his history of how the Brewers Association came about.

Many of today’s biggest names like New Belgium’s Kim Jordan, the Brewers Association’s Charlie Papazian and Boston Beer’s Jim Koch make appearances in The Craft Beer Revolution, and Hindy’s portrayal of them and their individual impact on the industry will change how you look at them forever.

Bottom line – Steve Hindy’s The Craft Beer Revolution is as insightful as it is entertaining and a must-read for all of us who care about this industry – A+