Over the Barrel: The Brewing History and Beer Culture of Cincinnati, Volume One, 1800-Prohibition by Timothy J. Holian, Over the Barrel: The Brewing History and Beer Culture of Cincinnati, Volume Two, Prohibition-2001 by Timothy J. Holian (review)

Following the successful East Tennessee campaign , General Ulysses S. Grant assessed the situation and determined that a new supply depot was desperately needed. While the camp no longer served one of its initial primary purposes, " the exigencies of black recruitment extended Camp Nelson' s military significance and its official existence ." ( xxx) The interaction between black Union soldiers and refugees and American Missionary Association agents offers a particularly compelling story that mirrors similar encounters throughout the Border States and occupied South. Despite the A.M.A.' s welldocumented paternalistic attitudes toward freedpeople, this organization, in most cases,provided exslaves their first opportunities in a classroom to learn how to read and write. If for no other reason, the interaction between A.M.A. missionaries and freedpeople which comprise a majority of the book's primary source materials evidences Camp Nelson's lasting contribution not only to the Union war effort, but more importantly as a vital hub for the early advancement of education for blacks in Kentucky. Camp Nelson, Kentucky is a wellresearched and wellpresented documentary history. The book might have benefited from the inclusion of maps showing the fort's location and an illustration,if available, detailing the fort's design. The primary documents are arranged well and include a wide array of materials originating from the Records of the United States Army in the National Timothy J. Holian. Over tbe Barrel.·Tbe Brewing History and Beer Culture of Cincinnati,Volume One,1800Probibi tion . St. Joseph, Missotiri: Sudhaus Press, 2000. 365 pp. ISBN: 0970390602 (paper), 24.95. Timothy J. Holian. Over tbe Barrel:Tbe Brewing History and Beer Culture of Cincinnati, Volume Two, Prohibition2001 . St. Joseph,Missouri: Sudhaus Press. 2003. 392 pp. ISBN: 0970390696 ( cloth), 35.00. incinnati has a long and rich brewing history. Most natives know this. Many would say that this is part of the city's German heritage. Others i»night remember 7 time w]en mi,st of the taps at their local watering hole poured local brews like Red Top or Weidemann's. But despite these memories , the depth and breadth of C: inciniiati brewing history is largely unknown to many Cincinnatians, especially those in younger generations. In these two volumes of Over tbe Barrel,Timothy J. Holian gives a detailed picture of that history, showing how beer helped define the city's culture for generations. He also shows why the industry suffered such a sharp and precipitous decline in the twentieth century. Prohibition is not just a convenient division point for these two volumes. It is the Archives, and from the American Missionary As- event that looms largest in the history of the brewsociation Archives which are housed in the Amistad ing industry in Cincinnati and the entire country. Research Center in New Orleans. This work would Before those dark days of the 1920s, Cincinnati be especially useful in an upper level collegiate had a thriving beer industry that served the largclassroom and for those scholars interested in the est locai market, per capita, in the country. After A.M.A.' s wartime activities. Prohibition, local breweries struggled to survive, Keith S. Hbert as the huge national brands moved into town with Auburn University their slick advertising campaigns, stealing away WINTER2004 11 75 BOOK REVIEWS loyal customers. Although Prohibition is the boogey man in Holian 's story,it is only one part of his two exhaustively complete volumes of brewing history. In the first volume, Holian provides a vivid picture about how beer and beermaking permeated every aspect of Cincinnati' s economy,culture and social structure. This may seem like hyperbole, but both of these volumes prove that there is no way to overstate the importance of beer to Cincinnati' s history. Indeed,one of the main reasons that Cincinnati breweries were easy prey for the national brands after Prohibition is because they never really had to sell outside of the local market. Beer consumption in the Cincinnati area was so high, as was local brand loyalty,that the city was able to support scores of breweries for well over a century. And companies like Hauck Brewing and Christian Moerlein were not just purveyors of local suds,but key sectors of the city...