Ken Wells, a novelist, a Pulitzer Prize finalist, and longtime Wall Street Journal writer, answers these questions and more by bringing a keen eye and prodigious reportage to the people and passions that have propelled beer into America's favorite alcoholic beverage and the beer industry into a potent force in American culture.

The heart of this book is the quizotic search for the mythical Perfect Beer Joint. But the trip also includes numerous detours up quirky tributaries, among them: to an Extreme Beer maker in Delaware with deigns to make 50-proof brew; to the murky world of beer-yeast rustlers in California; to the portals of ultimate beer power at Anheuser-Busch plant in St. Louis, where making the grade as a Clydesdale draught horse is harder than you might imagine.

Entertaining, enlightening, and written with Wells's trademark verve, Travels with Barley is a perfect gift--not just for America's 90 million beer enthusiasts but for all discerning readers of flavorful nonfiction.