photo by: Austin Hornbostel/Journal-World

Michael Travis is pictured at Free State Brewing Company Tuesday, May 3, 2022. Travis, a first-time author, is gearing up for the release of his upcoming book celebrating all 59 breweries in the state of Kansas.

After being laid off from a corporate management job during the COVID pandemic, Lawrence resident Michael Travis had a lot of time on his hands — and he ended up filling it by visiting all 59 breweries in the state.

It wasn’t just about sampling Kansas’ craft beers, though. He was doing research for a passion project: a book called “Celebrating Kansas Breweries: People, Places & Stories.”

Travis’ book is slated to be released in August, and he spoke with the Journal-World about it on Tuesday at a fitting location — Free State Brewing Company.

“At times, it doesn’t feel real, then all of a sudden I’ll get an email from (my publicist),” Travis said. “They’ll send me a to-do list, and I’ll be like ‘Oh my god, this is crazy.’ Or hearing from bookstores that they’ve already pre-ordered the book.”

A first-time author, Travis said he’d always wanted to write a book but hadn’t had the chance earlier in his life. After he lost his job, his wife encouraged him to give it a try, and he settled on writing about breweries because he was interested in the impact they had in their communities.

He saw that there were books about individual breweries in Kansas, but there was a niche nobody had filled yet: a book about every brewery in the state. So he started visiting them in June 2021, dedicating two or three days a week to traveling across the state.

He managed to check all of them off the list in less than a year, and the book’s story began to take shape. And it wasn’t so much about the beer as it was about the people who brew it.

“The story quickly became really trying to put on paper what the heartbeat was behind breweries,” Travis said.

Travis said he wanted to explain the feelings brewery owners are trying to elicit from visitors, or to tell the stories of what motivated small-town brewers to get started. His book has plenty of stories from the brewers, like one in chapter three of the book about Free State Brewing Company’s head brewer, Geoff Deman, and his annual trip to Washington’s Yakima Valley to replenish Free State’s hops supply.

But readers won’t find any tap lists in the book, Travis said: It’s more about encouraging exploration around the state than about suggesting specific beers to try. The book does include a few maps to help readers plan their own trips to Kansas breweries — for instance, a map encompassing the area from Lawrence to Manhattan that’s titled “Rock Chalk to Wildcat Country” — but Travis said his main goal was always to focus on the people behind the beer.

“I’m not spending as much time talking about the beer,” Travis said. “I spend more time asking the brewer, ‘Where did you come from? Were you a home brewer, or do you have a passion for certain styles of beer?'”

With that in mind, it’s not a surprise that Travis won’t tell you where to find the best beer in the state. He said it’s hard to pin one brewery as the best, but he said the most memorable for him was probably Center Pivot, located in the small town of Quinter in northwest Kansas. He’s said that’s because the brewery takes creative risks that others might not because it’s so small — like crafting a cracked pepper ale that Travis said pairs excellently with a burger.

But Travis said it’s also hard to pick just one standout because craft beer across the state is consistently good. He said there’s a good reason many Kansas breweries win awards for their work.

“With the exception of just one or two breweries, which not surprisingly closed their doors in 2021, the quality in the craft beer in this state is consistent and really, really good,” Travis said.

With the book’s publication date approaching, Travis said he’s been spending time lately reconnecting with the breweries he’s visited along the way. More than half of them have invited him back for appearances with his book, and four even want to brew a special beer to coincide with the book release.

Though the book is not even on shelves yet, Travis said he’s already thinking of what might come next. He said Oklahoma might be the next state whose beer culture he immerses himself in.

“This whole journey’s been great; I’ve absolutely loved it,” Travis said. “I’ve been incredibly blessed that my wife made me believe I could do it.”

“Celebrating Kansas Breweries: People, Places & Stories,” is slated to be released on Aug. 15 via Arcadia Publishing’s History Press.