Kirjahaku

MalÖrt may be the worst thing you’ll ever taste. But Jeppson’s MalÖrt is no stunt. Known primarily for its intense bitterness—such bitterness that it has been compared to “a forest fire, if the forest was made of earwax”—it is rooted in centuries-old Swedish tradition. It’s a fluke to have ever existed in the United States and flukier still to have survived 100 years. Least likely of all: Jeppson’s MalÖrt becoming the cultural sensation it is today.MalÖrt is a story of love, relationships and how one generation finds meaning where generations before did not. Such transformations happen in art, in history, and in food, and it happened to Jeppson’s MalÖrt.Author and beer expert Josh Noel unpacks a uniquely American tale, equal parts culture, business, and personal relationships as well as secret love, federal prison, a David vs. Goliath court battle, and, ultimately, the sale of Jeppson’s MalÖrt, in 2018, to make an unlikely millionaire of Pat Gabelick, a 74-year-old Chicago woman who spent much of her life as a legal secretary.MalÖrt isn’t just the story of one brazen liquor—it is the story of modern tastes and cultural shifts.

North American Guild of Beer Writer Award Recipient Goose Island opened as a family-owned Chicago brewpub in the late 1980s, and it soon became one of the most inventive breweries in the world. In the golden age of light, bland and cheap beers, John Hall and his son Greg brought European flavors to America. With distribution in two dozen states, two brewpubs and status as one of the 20 biggest breweries in the United States, Goose Island became an American success story and was a champion of craft beer. Then, on March 28, 2011, the Halls sold the brewery to Anheuser-Busch InBev, maker of Budweiser, the least craft-like beer imaginable. The sale forced the industry to reckon with craft beer’s mainstream appeal and a popularity few envisioned. Josh Noel broke the news of the sale in the Chicago Tribune, and he covered the resulting backlash from Chicagoans and beer fanatics across the country as the discussion escalated into an intellectual craft beer war. Anheuser-Busch has since bought nine other craft breweries, and from among the outcry rises a question that Noel addresses through personal anecdotes from industry leaders: how should a brewery grow?