Summer book research in the Ozarks and Springfield invested life into the long quiet hours of writing a book once I returned home. Don’t get me wrong. I love being a research nerd, poking my nose into city records, biographical accounts, and newspaper articles more than a century old. Diving into the past shifts my perspective when I consider the present. Then and now, I observe how human nature resurrects its best aspirations and worst impulses.
The central thesis of Barons, Brewers, and Bootleggers: A Social History of Beer in Missouri (Fall 2025) explores the stories of people connected to beer and brewing in the State of Missouri. Further, where relevant, I use the issues, opportunities, and challenges of the times they lived in and paint a backdrop that adds context to their life and decisions. In other words, the book takes a human-centered approach rather than a dry, factual, and categorical approach (zzzzz…) to breweries and related topics over the past 200 years.
A social history focuses on the experiences of people and the social structures that shape their lives and society at large. This emphasis provided greater leeway for me to examine history and tell stories about people, places, and events. Personal decisions play out against looming factors that impact the economy, politics, war, social practices, human rights, and more from decade to decade, generation to generation.
Research that involves parsing over the past, turning over details of long-dead people like fallen leaves and rocks on a trail, uses a specific skill set. I find records, passages in books, and other source material. I gather photocopies, PDFs, and digital entrails and shape this raw material into a coherent, cohesive story that’s hopefully informative, accurate, and entertaining.
Writing about people still alive and breweries still operating requires a different approach. I still research online and print articles, documents, and books as source material. Actually talking to the brewer and founder yields another level of detail and perspective that isn’t filtered through another writer’s voice or autobiographical remnant that may or may not be embellished. In other words, face-to-face conversations lead to fresh insights, interesting details and viewpoints, and information that might have been tucked away in a person’s memory.
Travel to a destination, such as Pinery River Brewing Company in the Ozarks, prompts a shift in perspective as well. I break from daily routine and take in views of the landscape, roadways, and people I have never seen before. A turn of phrase or simply seeing the geographical relationship between a road and a rocky bluff can spark a different way of seeing and understanding. Joined by my friend Tina Casagrand Foss, the editor and founder of The New Territory magazine, our travel from mid-Missouri to Bucyrus, Missouri in the Ozarks led us to reflect on and explore a place neither of us had experienced.
Meeting Piney River Brewing’s founders Brian and Joleen Durham (above) was a treat. They shared kindness and hospitality after our afternoon of travel. For my purposes, the Durhams provided personal anecdotes and lesser-known details about their life story and their relationship to the Ozarks that wouldn’t be as easy to divulge via email or telephone.
Among the chapters that feature living brewery owners and their business, I am perhaps most excited about the “taste of the Ozarks” that I experienced firsthand at Piney River Brewing. The motivation behind their story is one that many entrepreneurs will recognize: “We decided to make an investment in ourselves,” said Brian Durham.
Beyond that origin story, I wrote a multi-layered exploration of the Durhams, the history of their patch of the Ozarks, and the peoples across time who deeply identify with a sense of place. Readers will also meet Bub and his wife Regina “Jeanie” Miller, who share personal details about their “ancestor acres.”
Summer book research and August travel to Springfield, Missouri, brought me to Carol McLeod (above), co-owner of Hold Fast Brewing, and Jeff Birchler (below), co-owner of Wire Road Brewing. I appreciated conversation with each of them over a beer or two. If you’re in Springfield, a visit to their breweries (and others) is highly recommended. Both breweries are relatively young in the city and the state compared to established breweries and long-gone predecessors like the original 1800s Springfield Brewing Company.
In the book, readers will learn about German immigrant Johann Sebastian Dingeldein (aka Dingledine), the brewer behind Southwest Brewery in 1876 which later became Springfield Brewing (above, unrelated to today’s Springfield Brewing Company) and distributed beer to “all first class saloons in the southwest.” Notably, Missouri was once considered the Southwest of the United States rather than its current designation as the Midwest.
Chapters about long-lost breweries and contemporary breweries offer a juxtaposition between past and present. Breweries of their day reflect a microcosm of their community and city over time. In the book, I explore how newer establishments exist within the history of its landscape, such as the Civil War, and how breweries aim to etch their own place in history.
More travel and summer book research lies ahead to breweries and destinations in St. Louis, Kansas City, and other outposts. Barons, Brewers, and Bootleggers: A Social History of Beer in Missouri does not aim to be comprehensive in its tales of the state’s breweries and significant people. Blessedly, we have far too many to consider over a 200-plus year span. I believe that the chapters I produced and the stories of people like the Durhams, McLeods, Dingeldein, and others will leave readers thirsty for more and eager to travel themselves.
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