Jeffrey M. Pilcher, "Hopped Up: How Travel, Trade, and Taste Made Beer a Global Commodity" (Oxford UP, 2024)

In Conversation: An OUP Podcast · Dec 6, 2024 · 50m

Today I’m speaking with Jeffrey Pilcher, Professor of Food History at the University of Toronto. We are discussing his new book, Hopped Up: How Travel, Trade, and Taste Made Beer a Global Commodity (Oxford University Press, 2024). While beer, or even alcohol for that matter, is not consumed in many parts of the world, its near universality is still astonishing. Even in the Middle East, where alcohol is largely forbidden, non-alcoholic beer sells well. Perhaps most surprising is that in nearly every place where beer is consumed (with the exception of Ireland’s Guinness) the pale lager…