Bookmarked: The Lager Queen of Minnesota by J. Ryan Stradal
Some books arrive at precisely the right time when you’re craving a story that feels both grounded and generous and when the familiarity of a place becomes its kind of comfort. The Lager Queen of Minnesota is one of those books. It’s a warm, quietly powerful novel that follows two estranged sisters, Edith and Helen, whose lives diverge early in adulthood after a bitter family dispute. One becomes a successful businesswoman in the craft beer industry. The other leads a life of quiet sacrifice and steadfast practicality. Through their separate paths, Stradal crafts a multigenerational portrait of Midwestern women navigating pride, ambition, and forgiveness.
This novel is as much about economic survival as it is about brewing beer. It’s about the unseen labor of women, the inheritance of grief and grit, and what it means to build something that outlasts you—whether that’s a business, a recipe, or a legacy passed down in conversation. Stradal doesn’t romanticize the Midwest so much as he reveals the richness within its restraint.
Thanks to one of my closest friends, Hayley, this book found its way into my hands. During a visit to a local bookstore, she was drawn to the "Blind Date With a Book" display and the brown paper-wrapped titles with just a few teaser phrases across the front. The one she selected promised family drama, Midwestern settings, and something to do with beer. She read the novel and handed it to me shortly after, saying, “You are going to love this.”
Reader, she was right.
A Familiar Geography
Although I didn’t grow up in Minnesota, my father’s side of the family is from the Minneapolis area. That part of the country holds a kind of ancestral pull for me. Summers spent by the lakes, holiday visits full of snowy roads and Lutheran potlucks, family stories that are full of modest triumphs and quiet stubbornness. There is a rhythm to the region that feels embedded in the way I understand place. Reading J. Ryan Stradal’s work felt like stepping into a version of that familiar and fictionally heightened landscape, one that illuminated what I had always sensed but never quite articulated.
What most captured me about this novel was its treatment of Midwestern women. The characters are written with sincerity and complexity. They are pragmatic and often stoic but never flat or reductive. Edith and Helen, the sisters at the novel's center, become estranged after an inheritance dispute. One of them becomes an acclaimed brewer. The other struggles to make ends meet while working in institutional kitchens. Their divergence becomes a meditation on class, opportunity, and the fault lines that run through family histories.
Stradal does not romanticize his characters but writes them with deep empathy. These women are not extraordinary in the cinematic sense, but they are formidable in their consistency, resilience, and capacity for care. The novel shows how strength can be quiet, how survival can take the form of repetition, and how dignity can reside in the most ordinary acts.
What the Novel Offers
My interest in beer began in 2019 when I started working at a brewery in Spearfish, South Dakota. At the time, I knew very little about brewing beyond the occasional taproom tasting. Being behind the scenes, watching the process, learning the language, and understanding how much artistry goes into each pour sparked a curiosity that has only deepened. This novel, emphasizing brewing as both craft and metaphor, solidified that interest. The detailed attention Stradal pays to the brewing process gave me a new lens through which to appreciate beer's complexity as a cultural and creative practice. Today, I continue to engage with that world through my side job as a content writer for a brewery in Sioux Falls, where I blend storytelling and fermentation in ways that feel both satisfying and full of potential.
The Lager Queen of Minnesota explores legacy in both the personal and professional sense. It considers who is remembered and why and how women, particularly older women in the Midwest, are often written out of narratives of success. The novel offers a reframing of that absence. It invites readers to reconsider what counts as meaningful achievement and whose stories are worth telling.
There is also a tenderness to the writing that feels earned. Stradal’s prose is not showy, but it is deliberate. He has a way of crafting scenes that feel understated and emotionally charged. He allows his characters to change slowly, to arrive at insight through accumulation rather than revelation. My understanding is that the strong female characters in his novel are inspired by his mother, who passed away at 55. The result is a narrative that feels both expansive and intimate.
Why It Matters
This novel stayed with me because it reminded me of the women in my own family. Women who worked hard spoke plainly and did not ask for recognition, women whose strength was never decorative but deeply practical. I found echoes of my grandmother in Edith’s thrift and Helen’s ambition. I recognized the tension between sacrifice and resentment, between independence and loyalty.
Reading this novel made me think about what it means to build a lasting life—not one that is celebrated publicly but one that is remembered privately. A life that leaves traces in recipes passed down, family arguments revisited, and the quiet persistence of care.
The Lager Queen of Minnesota is a novel rich in detail and generous in spirit. It is about women who brew beer and keep going even when no one is watching. The novel honors Midwestern life not by idealizing it but by rendering it with precision, wit, and affection.
If you have ever loved a woman who made pie from scratch or repaired what was broken with whatever was on hand, this book will speak to you. It is a story about resilience, reconciliation, and legacy's slow, steady work.
Yes, there is beer, pie, and plenty of heart.
