Ah, what a fascinating topic beer is, unless placed in the hands of a WSJ business reporter in his 50's looking to relive the glory of that summer on the river when birds sang and fish jumped and cousin Willis spun yarns until them critters bit and Auntie Maybel fried 'em on up while Gramps spit chew on the freshly mowed lawn.

Forgive me, for sentiment falls heavily on the eyes of a man with banana/strawberry barf on his sandals. Book #2 in the exploration of ye newe Beere Culture is Ken Wells' Travels With Barley (get it, JS?), which would have been fine as a longish New Yorker piece on the brewing stars of the craft beer scene, but instead implodes quietly as a quest for the "perfect beer joint." Luckily, you can skip the chapters devoted to the search, as Wells is a profoundly unfunny man and one who thinks that reporting on bars should best be done around 4:00 pm- you know, when all the funny people are there and all those wacky things happen. OK, conning your Pinot-sipping boss into giving you three months to cruise south from Milwaukee to New Orleans deserves kudos, but how can you write a book about beer joints without a single laugh? Oh, show up at each new bar when folks are still sleeping it off, and then do some solid reporting. That beer waitress goddess with the Depeche Mode and Kiss Me I'm Outrageous buttons has got a really fat ass and a story to tell. Jesus, even that bi-polar dude with the laptop ain't there by 4:00.

The research chapters on the state of the industry are interesting, but as a whole this falls flatter than a Meister Brau after three hours in the Aussie sand. Nice to know that quality brew can come in at 24% and that the dude behind Dogfish Head is a modern Da Vinci, but boy there is a lot to plow through before you can extract the nuggets.