Brewing history touches every corner of Washington. When it was a territory, homesteader operations like Colville Brewery helped establish towns. In 1865, Joseph Meeker planted the state s first hops in Steilacoom. Within a few years, that modest crop became a five-hundred-acre empire, and Washington led the nation in hops production by the turn of the century. Enterprising pioneers like Emil Sick and City Brewery s Catherine Stahl galvanized early Pacific Northwest brewing. In 1982, Bert Grant s Yakima Brewing and Malting Company opened the first brewpub in the country since Prohibition. Soon, Seattle s Independent Ale Brewing Company led a statewide craft tap takeover, and today, nearly three hundred breweries and brewpubs call the Evergreen State home. Author Michael F. Rizzo unveils the epic story of brewing in Washington."