Hindy balances reverence with realism, resulting in a vigorous, if sometimes overly meticulous genealogy of the burgeoning...
Former journalist and Brooklyn Brewery co-founder Hindy (co-author: Beer School: Bottling Success at the Brooklyn Brewery, 2005) considers craft beers and the innovators who brought them to the wider American and global markets from the 1960s to the present.
Beginning with an account of Fritz Maytag, the force behind San Francisco’s Anchor Brewing Company, the author draws from choice interviews, magazines such as All About Beer, anecdotes and related ephemera to explore a variety of topics. These include the legalization of home brewing in 1979; seminal writers in the early days of the practice, such as Charlie Papazian (The Complete Joy of Homebrewing) and Michael Jackson (The World Guide to Beer); the frequent path from homebrewing to microbrewery and brewpub startups; forerunners, including Jim Koch of the Boston Beer Company; and numerous profiles of second- and third-generation brewers. With extensive passages devoted to the intricacies of formulating standards, initial challenges in establishing camaraderie among brewers, relationships with distributors, the sometimes-negative view of contract brewers and responses to media-fueled “wars” with larger corporations such as Anheuser-Busch, this is a book for intense aficionados. Thorough surveys of the field—from descriptions of actions by the Association of Brewers and other organizations to play-by-plays of particular company sales—reveal an insider's dedication to the business. For the generalist, chapters that emphasize the can-do spirit embodied by men and women who gambled on their dreams, and that reveal a frequent interest in giving back to the communities that supported them, offer more interesting, personal stories. Despite tensions between craft brewers, what emerges is a revolution marked by "a band of Davids" bent on confronting the "Goliaths."
Hindy balances reverence with realism, resulting in a vigorous, if sometimes overly meticulous genealogy of the burgeoning world of craft beer.Pub Date: April 22, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-137-27876-0
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Review Posted Online: March 17, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2014
PROFILES
These are not hard and fast rules, but Meyer delivers important reading for those engaged in international business.
A helpful guide to working effectively with people from other cultures.
“The sad truth is that the vast majority of managers who conduct business internationally have little understanding about how culture is impacting their work,” writes Meyer, a professor at INSEAD, an international business school. Yet they face a wider array of work styles than ever before in dealing with clients, suppliers and colleagues from around the world. When is it best to speak or stay quiet? What is the role of the leader in the room? When working with foreign business people, failing to take cultural differences into account can lead to frustration, misunderstanding or worse. Based on research and her experiences teaching cross-cultural behaviors to executive students, the author examines a handful of key areas. Among others, they include communicating (Anglo-Saxons are explicit; Asians communicate implicitly, requiring listeners to read between the lines), developing a sense of trust (Brazilians do it over long lunches), and decision-making (Germans rely on consensus, Americans on one decider). In each area, the author provides a “culture map scale” that positions behaviors in more than 20 countries along a continuum, allowing readers to anticipate the preferences of individuals from a particular country: Do they like direct or indirect negative feedback? Are they rigid or flexible regarding deadlines? Do they favor verbal or written commitments? And so on. Meyer discusses managers who have faced perplexing situations, such as knowledgeable team members who fail to speak up in meetings or Indians who offer a puzzling half-shake, half-nod of the head. Cultural differences—not personality quirks—are the motivating factors behind many behavioral styles. Depending on our cultures, we understand the world in a particular way, find certain arguments persuasive or lacking merit, and consider some ways of making decisions or measuring time natural and others quite strange.
These are not hard and fast rules, but Meyer delivers important reading for those engaged in international business.Pub Date: May 27, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-61039-250-1
Page Count: 288
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: April 15, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2014
Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.
“Quality of life means more than just consumption”: Two MIT economists urge that a smarter, more politically aware economics be brought to bear on social issues.
It’s no secret, write Banerjee and Duflo (co-authors: Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way To Fight Global Poverty, 2011), that “we seem to have fallen on hard times.” Immigration, trade, inequality, and taxation problems present themselves daily, and they seem to be intractable. Economics can be put to use in figuring out these big-issue questions. Data can be adduced, for example, to answer the question of whether immigration tends to suppress wages. The answer: “There is no evidence low-skilled migration to rich countries drives wage and employment down for the natives.” In fact, it opens up opportunities for those natives by freeing them to look for better work. The problem becomes thornier when it comes to the matter of free trade; as the authors observe, “left-behind people live in left-behind places,” which explains why regional poverty descended on Appalachia when so many manufacturing jobs left for China in the age of globalism, leaving behind not just left-behind people but also people ripe for exploitation by nationalist politicians. The authors add, interestingly, that the same thing occurred in parts of Germany, Spain, and Norway that fell victim to the “China shock.” In what they call a “slightly technical aside,” they build a case for addressing trade issues not with trade wars but with consumption taxes: “It makes no sense to ask agricultural workers to lose their jobs just so steelworkers can keep theirs, which is what tariffs accomplish.” Policymakers might want to consider such counsel, especially when it is coupled with the observation that free trade benefits workers in poor countries but punishes workers in rich ones.
Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.Pub Date: Nov. 12, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-61039-950-0
Page Count: 432
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: Aug. 28, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
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