Beer Week: Steven Shomler’s Portland Beer Stories

• What is it? A collection of stories about the people who work in Portland’s beer world
• Who’s it For? Portlanders
• Reviewer Disclosure. I wrote the foreword. I know Steven a bit, but mainly in the way I know many people whom I see around town at pubs and fests.
• Scope. Portland, Oregon

The Review

Portland Beer Stories is something of a curious book. It contains a fairly large number of vignettes about brewers (home- and pro), publicans, business owners, and writers (a few cider makers even make the list). It’s actually something like a collection of blog posts, though author Steven Shomler is not a blogger. (He does, however harness our local blogging talent for interstitial “writer perspectives” pieces, giving it an even more bloggy feel.) That is to say, there’s no through-line connecting these stories; their organizing principle is the city itself. Collectively, the vignett …