A continuing account on the beer history of the American Homebrewers Association

December 8, 7:32 PMBeer ExaminerCharlie Papazian

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Historian Maureen Ogle author of Ambitious Brews

Maureen Ogle is about to embark on presenting an historian's view of the founding of the American Homebrewers Association. 

     On December 5, I posted a brief personal account of the American Homebrewers Association early days on its impending 30th anniversary.  Titled  "A beer milestone - American Homebrewers Association turns 30."

Maureen recalled the history of homebrewing she researched for her book, Ambitious Brews and has decided to present the history as she originally wrote it - that never made it into her book.

     She writes in her blog:

I’m launching a new blog series today: First Draft Follies.

Here’s the deal: Writers write more words than they publish. A published book is the result of writing, re-writing, editing, paring, agonizing, and head-bashing.

For example, The first draft of the Ambitious Brew manuscript was 175,000 words long. The final book, however, came in at about 115,000. Put another way, I wrote thousands of words that I never "used."

Why? Many reasons, but the main one is this:

When writers write, they’re constructing a “narrative arc,” the “storyline,” if you will, of the book. But not everything they “know” about their subject is necessary for or even relevant to, the final narrative arc. As Hemingway said while writing Death In The Afternoon (and I'm paraphrasing his comment): writers read fifty books (or documents or whatever) just to write one paragraph.

Her first blog on the subject is entitled: 30 Years Of The AHA (Yep. You Gotta Keep Reading to Learn What And Why)

Her second installment (the first of the "First Draft Follies" is entitled:  First Draft Follies: The Founding Of The American Homebrewers Association, Part One