Cheers to The Lager Queen of Minnesota! I completely adored this book and I chugged it like a can of Blotz! This family saga follows the separate lives of Helen, an ambitious and often self-involved Minnesotan woman driven to great successes by her desire to create a beer for the everyman, her kind and hardworking older sister Edith, and Edith's brilliant and steadfast granddaughter Diana as they navigate the various tragedies and triumphs in their very different lives until it leads to their reconvergence as a family. The Midwestern setting and voices in this story were so welcome in my life right now. It's cold, it's dark, it's the holiday season which can often be stressful, and I haven't been feeling much like myself. The time the reader gets to spend with this family feels like being enveloped in a warm Midwestern hug, especially if you listen to the audiobook, which left me feeling that I had been sitting around the family dining table drinking a beer and sharing stories with my loved ones. This was the perfect read to cheer me up and make me feel warm and fuzzy without being totally saccharine.

Helen discovered her passion for brewing beer at an early age. In many ways, she was already considered to be the best in her family: smartest, prettiest, and most ambitious, especially when compared to her tame older sister Edith, who is as sweet and simple as the tasty pies she loves to bake. Helen's drive and ambition matched with her love for the craft launched her to successes a person like Edith might never have even thought to dream about, but the success came at the cost of the two sisters' relationship. Just before their father passed away, Helen managed to convince him to leave his entire estate to her to launch her brewery, with the contingency that she would pay Edith her fair share of the inheritance and then some. When Helen never followed through on that promise, it created a deep chasm between the lives of each sister. While Helen and her husband enjoyed a luxurious lifestyle built on the foundation of their nationally successful brewing company, Edith and her truck driving husband lived a small and simple life, scraping together whatever they could to get by while raising their family.

Decades of silence later, Edith is working hard at two or three jobs at a time throughout her seventies, doing her best to raise her granddaughter Diana following tragedy in the family. Diana is whip-smart and street savvy, and her tenacity to do whatever it takes to support her hardworking grandmother nearly lands her in trouble, but instead lands her working in a local brewery, where she herself discovers a passion and natural talent for the craft. Her unique life story gives her beer a one-of-a-kind quality that allows her to develop a quiet but impressive reputation, catching the eyes of some big names in the brewing industry, and Diana just might find that she's more intricately connected to one person in particular than she might have guessed...

I loved this book so much! The highlight is of course the amazingly well-developed characters, and the beer, which really became its own character in this story. I can't wait to read J. Ryan Stradal's debut soon because I loved his descriptions of food and drink. I absolutely need to go beer tasting immediately after listening to this.

The Midwestern setting was phenomenal. Listening to the audiobook really made me feel like I was surviving cold winters outside by spending time with warm people inside, and it was so comforting to listen to. The characters are as much a part of the setting as they are characters, because the Midwest is nothing without its people and their reputation of being kindly, family-oriented, hard-working, and thoughtful, which all of the main characters (yes, even Helen) were in their own way. The side characters also had their moments to shine, like Stanley for example. I loved the description about what he loves about being a truck driver. My rinky-dink Colorado trucking town even got a mention which made me feel particularly connected to him and others like him in this book! Attention to the minor details in the life of a person like that is what made this book such a stand-out in my mind. These are real people. These are people you buy your groceries from or sit next to at a diner counter. They struggle with the small stuff just like a lot of us, and their lives don't have to be extravagant or impressive to be important and meaningful. I love that humble slice-of-life sentiment in any book.

This book may be a bit slow for some readers which was why I initially awarded it 4 stars, but it left me feeling so content and I enjoyed listening to it so much that I bumped it up to 5. It's not a book for every reader, but it reminded me of my Midwestern roots and family and even brought out a little bit of that Midwestern accent in me, which made me feel altogether more charming, trustworthy, and wholesome, much like this story. If you're feeling a little down, I recommend this to cheer you up. It will leave you feeling warm in your stomach and your heart, like you just enjoyed a nice beer with an old friend.