Biographical note: GalbraithJohn Kenneth: John Kenneth Galbraith was Paul M. Warburg Professor of Economics, Emeritus, at Harvard University. James Goodman is Associate Professor of History at Rutgers University.

Decades before beer brewing transformed into a truly global industry toward the end of the nineteenth century, Central Europe - primarily the Habsburg monarchy and the German states - emerged as a sort of laboratory in which networks were forged, new inventions tested, new beer sorts copied, and...