“The history of various forms beverages offers a window into both the human condition and how our culture fulfills this basic biological need”

Every nuance to what we taste and smell has a story behind it, stories about labor, passion, struggle, and ultimately, revelations of the human condition. The study of gastronomic history is infinitely fascinating, because of our physiology requires fluids more than solids. The history of various forms beverages offers a window into both the human condition and how our culture fulfills this basic biological need. While this project focused on a major change within the brewing industry, it is still a localized analysis of a very recent change, and its subsequent reverberations. Further research can be conducted by students of the coffee, tea, cola, and bottled water industries. Research on these products, and how they relate to identity formation in the culture of consumption, could provide avenues worthy of investigation for future historians.

Eric Ortega, “The Golden State of Brewing; California’s Economic and Cultural Influence in the American Brewing Industry” (Master’s thesis, California State University, Fullerton, 2015), 116.