“Bottoms Up” Now in Paperback

This week, the Wisconsin Historical Society Press releases one of its most popular books of all time, Bottoms Up: A Toast to Wisconsin’s Historic Bars & Breweries by Jim Draeger and Mark Speltz, in paperback.

Bottoms Up celebrates Wisconsin’s taverns and the breweries that fueled them. Beginning with inns and saloons, the book explores the rise of taverns and breweries, the effects of temperance and Prohibition, and attitudes about gender, ethnicity and morality. It traces the development of the megabreweries, dominance of the giants, and the emergence of microbreweries. Contemporary photographs of unusual and distinctive bars and breweries of all eras, historical photos, postcards, advertisements, and breweriana illustrate the story of how Wisconsin came to dominate brewing and the place that bars, and beer, hold in our social and cultural history.

The hardcover edition, first published in 2012, is now out of print. It was replaced this week by the $25 paperback edition. The book also inspired a Wisconsin Public Television documentary, Bottoms Up, which is also available for sale as a DVD. To order a copy, visit wisconsinhistory.org/whspress.