I loved this debut series by favorite cozy author Ellie Alexander's brand new Sloan Krause Mystery series! This is unique themed cozy as it takes place in a brewery and what fun it was to read. Every reader will enjoy reading about the interesting process of brewing.
Sloan Krause finds her husband in a compromising position with a employee so she quickly takes a new job at in Leavenworth Washington which is a complete Bavarian themed town. Her new job is a brewery expert and she enjoys her new position at the brewery. Her character is very funny and has this reader laughing out loud throughout the book. She has a good rapport with her new boss and makes friends quickly. The small town is delightful and the people embrace Sloan and her new position.
Just as she begins to fit into her new job she finds a dead body in a vat of beer and begins to investigate. As she finds clues to the suspect she has many funny experiences. As a protagonist she is the perfect blend for the reader of being smart, funny and clever.
The sleuth was very well crafted and kept this reader guessing throughout. I enjoyed this cozy in its entirety , the people, the location descriptions were beautiful and you feel as though your in this lovely Bavarian themed town . This avid cozy reader highly recommends this new series and I look forward to the next in series. A 5 star rating for this wonderful series. Its a must read for every mystery reader.
Thank you for the ARC which did not influence my review. Well done to author Ellie Alexander ! A winning cozy series has arrived.

Three and a half stars: A nice cozy mystery perfect for beer connoisseurs, but it was easy to figure out the culprit.

The day Sloan catches her husband in a compromising position with the bar maid, is the day she decides it’s time to get a new job. Thanks to her brother in law, Hans, Sloan quickly lands a job helping start up brewer, Garrett Strong, launch his beer and pub. Garrett is in way over his head, but luckily, Sloan comes to the rescue. The opening is a smash, but then things quickly sour when Sloan discovers the body of one of the brewers in the beer tank. Who would murder a fellow brewer and why?
What I Liked:
*Death on Tap is the perfect read for anyone who truly appreciates beer. This book is all about brewing craft beer. Living in the Pacific Northwest, I have learned a thing or two about beer, and so this was a fantastic read for me. I loved the author’s attention to detail when it comes to all things beer and food. If you are a beer drinker, this is a fun one to check out.
*With any cozy mystery, you need a terrific setting. This one delivers with Leavenworth, Washington. Leavenworth is a real life Bavarian town set in the Mountains of the Pacific Northwest. The story is about all things German, especially the beer and food. I soaked up the setting, and I now want to visit myself.
*The overall mystery was well done, even though I had the culprit pegged early on. The author provided plenty of red herrings, lots of motives and potential suspects. So even though I was quite sure who committed the murder, I still found myself second guessing.
*I liked that this one had some interesting side stories so it wasn’t all about the beer and the murder. Sloan is forced to face her past, explore her relationship with Mac, her estranged husband, and she learns a thing or two about friends and family. There was an intriguing hint at the end of the book regarding Sloan’s heritage, which I will be eager to follow up on.
*I enjoyed some of the secondary characters. The Krause family, Otto, Ursula and Hans were delightful. I was especially charmed by Otto and Ursula the kindly, elderly German owners and brewers of Das Keller Brewery. Both of them were sweet, generous and adorable. Hans was wonderful as well. I loved how he stepped up and helped Sloan. Garrett was interesting, and I found myself liking his laid back approach to life, even though he kept me guessing. I have to admit that I spent the majority of the book not liking Mac, but at the end, he impressed me, and I am hopeful that I will like him.
*The ending was well done. The case wrapped up neatly and everything was explained.
And the Not So Much:
*I found myself not liking the majority of the characters. Aside from Sloan, Garret and the Krause family, I didn’t like anyone else in town. Most of the townsfolk that were introduced were rather unsavory from April the town busybody to Eddie and Bruin the brewers and Van the hops guy. One thing I usually love about cozy mysteries is the setting and the warm characters. This one needed more friendly characters.
*The author gave too much away early on and it was easy to pick out the murderer.
Some of the ploys that were used to throw the reader off the trail of the culprit didn’t exactly come across as realistic when all was exposed.
*This is a personal niggle, but I really wanted some recipes. I wish there were recipes for Sloan’s comfort soup, IPA Citrus Cupcakes and Stout brownies. All the yummy food described in the story made my mouth water.

Death on Tap was a fun cozy mystery perfect for beer lovers. I loved the author’s attention to detail when it comes to beer. She truly did her research. The setting was fantastic, and the food descriptions were scrumptious. The only drawbacks were that this book had too many unsavory characters and it was rather easy to pick out the murder early on. Still this was an entertaining read, perfect for when you want a lighter mystery.

I received a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own, and I was not compensated for this review.
Posted@Rainy Day Ramblings.

I was happy to receive an advance copy of DEATH ON TAP, the first book in Ellie Alexander's brand new Sloan Krause Mystery series! All I can say is, oh my, what an opening line… I loved it!! Sloan has a unique voice, a bit edgy at times and is often humorous. Being raised in the foster system has given her the feeling of being an outsider and maybe not quite fitting in. With the collapse of Sloan’s marriage, even though her mother-in-law and father-in-law are the only parents she’s ever had, she still feels like she doesn’t belong in the family any longer. At times her doubt about her self-worth to the family made me feel emotional and once or twice tears touched my lashes. Sloan is the type of protagonist the reader wants to cheer for. I also liked that she is also a mom to a teenaged son. This gives added dimension to her character along with unique challenges to working full-time and trying to solve a crime.

The town of Leavenworth is a quaint Bavarian-themed setting, perfect for the backdrop of murder by drowning in a brew tank. When suspicion falls on both Sloan’s cheating husband and her new boss, she realizes she needs to find some answers that will clear them both. Okay, she may have considered letting her husband take the blame, but for the sake of their son, decided he needed to be proven innocent. The murder mystery is woven around the theme of beer and I enjoyed the bits and pieces provided about the brewing process. I loved some of the very clever names the author provides for the various brews and wish I could sample some of Sloan’s concoctions! DEATH ON TAP is strong on character development and letting the reader get to know the town and area. I think it’s a good set up for future books in the series. There is also a mystery thread pertaining to Sloan’s life before the foster system that I believe will run through the subsequent books and I look forward to reading future books in this series!

Death on Tap is the first Sloan Krause Mystery by Ellie Alexander. I have read the Bakeshop Mysteries by this author, Ellie Alexander, and have enjoyed all of them. This is the first book featuring Sloan Krause, who lives in Leavenworth, Washington and brews beer.

Leavenworth, Washington is the perfect setting for a cozy mystery series. I usually visit Leavenworth once a year and found that the author Alexander portrayed it perfectly. Leavenworth is a Bavarian theme town set in the Cascade Mountains. It really does look like a Bavarian village. Even the McDonalds and Safeway have Bavarian themes. It is filled with shops aimed at tourists, great restaurants and craft breweries and many hotels. It is a great weekend destination. They have many festivals there so like I said, a perfect setting.

I like Sloan Krause our main character. She has just kicked her husband to the curb after she caught him cheating. But could he be a murderer? Sloan doesn't think so. She was the one who found the dead man at her employer's craft brewery, Nitro. Nitro's owner has developed a new citrus infused beer that everyone seems to want the recipe for.

Great debut! Highly recommend this new series! Death on Tap is a must read!

This is a fun, fast-paced cozy mystery. The descriptions are delightful, the characters are fun and readers will fly through this story.

Ellie Alexander's Bakeshop Mysteries are one of my very favorite cozy series, and I was not disappointed in the author's first book in a new brewing themed series, Death on Tap. This series features Sloan, a brewer of craft beer who has recently caught her husband Mac in a compromising position, as she decides to leave the family brewery and take a job working at a new microbrewery in town. The town itself, Leavenworth, prides itself on its German heritage and theme and is a great setting for this series. I'll agree with some reviews I read that this book is light on mystery and heavy on setup and character development, but I think this worked well for the first book in a series. Based on the author's previous books and some hints set up at the end of the book, I'm confident she can introduce a stronger mystery elements as the series goes on.

The mystery was great, but there was too much information on beer and not enough plot. It caused the pacing of the book to drag in parts, and I found myself wanting to skip parts to get back to the mystery. I did love the setting. It sounds like a fun and quirky town.

A fun cozy mystery that’s heavy on setting and theme, but light on the mystery. Death on Tap is the first in a new series by Ellie Alexander, who writes the Pacific Northwest Mysteries, and also the Bakeshop Mysteries. Death on Tap is set in the picturesque Bavarian-styled town of Leavenworth in Washington State. I’ve never been to Leavenworth, but it’s been on my list to visit for a while, and it has definitely moved up the list after reading this book! It sounds like such a lovely place, and so atmospheric!
Besides the beautiful setting, another fun component to this book is all of the talk about beer. The main character, Sloan, is a brewer with an interest in cooking and baking, and Death on Tap is full of beer knowledge and information about different beers and the brewing process. I enjoyed all of this information about beer, however, there was quite a bit of it, so if beer doesn’t interest you, you might not find the book as interesting as I did. Besides beer, Sloan also whips up various baked goods and savory dishes that all sounded delicious! Death on Tap really made me hungry and eager to get into the kitchen and make something, with my favorite beer in hand.
I liked Sloan, who narrates the book. In the first chapter she discovers her husband, Mac, cheating on her with a younger woman, and even though she’s angry with her husband and throws him out of the house, she still tries to maintain maturity with him because they have a teenage son, Alex. I enjoyed the relationship between fifteen-year-old Alex and his parents. He talks to them both, he is interested in what is happening in their lives (and the parents are interested in his life), and he is supportive.
As Sloan decides to leave the family brewing company, she begins to work at a start-up brewery called Nitro, which is owned by the handsome Garrett Strong. Garrett seemed like a nice guy with a bit of mystery to him, but is very much the standard cozy nice guy.
One issue I did have is that Sloan repeatedly thinks of the woman that her husband was with as “the beer wench”. While this was fine the first couple of times it was mentioned, it was used far too frequently for me, and I kept rolling my eyes when I saw it.
I will say that the mystery aspects of Death on Tap were very light. Yes, there is a murder, but Sloan isn’t 100% intent on solving the mystery. She investigates a little, and talks to the police chief (who is yay! a woman!), but her thoughts are very much about what is going on with her life and her job rather than dropping all semblance of life until the mystery is solved. I found this light mystery approach actually very refreshing, and I think that contemporary readers who typically skip cozy mysteries because they aren’t really into the mystery aspect would like this book. Those who are into heavily plotted and complex mysteries will find Death on Tap lacking. I personally very much enjoyed the focus on setting, theme, and family here, so the light mystery didn’t bother me at all. I’m looking forward to future books in this series as Death on Tap ends in a way that sets up another mystery to solve.

Bottom Line: A cozy mystery for those who don’t enjoy mysteries. Fabulous setting and theme!

Death on Tap by Ellie Alexander is the first in a new series, Sloan Krause Mystery, by Ms. Alexander and was an interesting book to read.

Sloan Krause is a surprising woman who grew up in the foster care system so learned at an early age to be independent and not open herself up to anyone. She lucked out when she met the Krause family at a farmers' market, met their oldest son and eventually became part of the family when they married. Sloan believed that she had everything she ever wanted, a family, and was content. Then she caught her husband with a "beer wench" and her life began to spiral out of control. Then of course there was a murder. I liked Sloane because she is smart, determined, a master brewmaster that is a rank very few women achieve, and capable of handling a brew pub operation from start to finish. However, I fear Ms. Alexander is setting up a "romance triangle" as this series continues

Although the plot is smoothly paced most of this book was to introduce the characters, the town of Levenworth, WA and beer brewing. I applaud Ms. Alexander for her attention to detail and her indepth research as I learned so much about beer brewing; and she did it in a way that was easily understandable to even a light drinker like myself. The murder mystery was almost secondary to the rest of the story and was resolved quickly after much family and personal drama within the Krause family. Definitely an easy read for an afternoon.

I voluntarily reviewed an Advance Reader Copy of this book from Minotaur Books via NetGalley. All of the above opinions are my own.

Ellie Alexander has a spectacular new series for us cozy mystery lovers and Death on Tap is a very binge worthy book! If like me you are going to read it on your ereader, make sure it is fully charged before starting as you are not going to want to put it down, and my battery ran out when I was 70% through the book, I was full of anguish waiting for it to recharge. From the first sentence I was sucked into this cozy and page after page falling deeply in love with this new book and what I hope will be a hugely successful series. Death on Tap is based on a real place called Leavenworth in Washington State. Earlier this summer my husband and I went there for the first time and the magic I felt walking in this Bavarian Town is perfectly replicated in the book! The town itself , in real live is charming, and a little slice of heaven set in a very picturesque part of Washington State, with architecture that will make you think you have traveled to Europe. This small community is as much for tourists as it is for locals and very dedicated to making your experience in Leavenworth memorable. This same sentiment is felt strongly in this book. Main character Sloan, was completely relatable, a resilient and strong woman in her 40's faced with making choices and dealing with all the trappings of a small town, confidence in herself, her family and a lack of confidence in her husband. I love that she is a master brewer, having a job not typically found in the cozy world and that she is as passionate about her work as she is about family and the town she lives in. This book was so good that I wanted to pack my bags and head back on what for me is a 6 hour drive just to sit in the square and read Death on Tap, get some amazing fudge, pick up more of that cranberry tea I got while I was there and indulge in the the wonderful cuisine and comfort that Leavenworth offers both in person and in how Ellie Alexander shares in Death on Tap.
I loved it, I ugly cried in parts and I did not want it to end. The only bad part for me reading this as an advanced reading copy is I have to wait impatiently for Ellie to write the next one, I can not wait to see what happens next and hope that this becomes a very long running series. You must read this if you are a cozy lover, you won't be disappointed! This book comes out October 3rd!

Sloan Krause finds herself dealing with her husband's infidelity, a new job and a murder. After confronting her husband, Sloan decides to take a job at a nanobrewery called Nitro. She has experience working in her in-laws brewery, but knows the situation is untenable with Mac's infidelity. But trouble seems to follow Sloan when she discovers a body in one of the brew tanks and her husband's lighter nearby.

Lots of good deal on microbrewing and what it takes to make a good tasting beer. I hope this is the start of a new series.

The book opens with brewer Sloan Krause walking in on her husband in flagrante delicto with one of their new barmaids. She'd had a general sense that he might be cheating on her but now there's proof. So she leaves. Not only him but his family's brewery.
But her start at the new brewery in town (a destination town where beer is king) is more than a little rocky. Her ex seems determined to win her back, the supplier seems squirrelly, and Sloane discovers the body of a rival brewer in one of Nitro's beer tanks.
It's an interesting start to a new series but I'm a little trepidatious about whether it will be one that I will continue to enjoy. This book includes a LOT of set up so not as much story.

Three stars
This book comes out October 3

Sadly not as good as Ellie Alexander's Bakeshop mystery series.

The selling feature on this novel is that is revolves around a small German like town in America that loves brewing beer. The lead character, Sloan, is a brew master who creates and sells beer! I don't think there is another cozy mystery series out there that revolves around beer.

I didn't love Sloan and couldn't connect with her at all. The mystery, like others have mentioned, is a bit on the boring side. It seemed like it was almost a side story instead of the main focus. Not sure if I will give this series another chance or just stick with the Bakeshop series.

This is the first book in a new Beer Mystery Series. This is the first beer-related cozy series I have come across, and I have to appreciate the originality, especially since beer brewing is primarily a man's occupation. I must admit, I was engrossed in this book. I started it in the morning, and was annoyed that I had to go to a friend's for the day to watch football when I just wanted to finish it! I found the book overall enjoyable, but it seemed that the murder/mystery part got lost for awhile amidst the cheating hubby and family drama. Regardless, the book really pulled me in. I will look for the next one!

"It wasn't so much the sight of my husband's bare ass that would become permanently etched in my memory, but rather the rhythmic sounds of the German brass band oompah-ing in the background, coupled with the strong but delicious smell of grains steeping in the mash tun."

How could you not be intrigued by this opening line?

Sloan decides that it's time for her to leave the Das Kellar brewery and find a new job away from her husband's family. She accepts a position as brewer with a new small Microbrewery but things don't exactly start out well because on the day after their opening she finds a rival floating dead in the tank.

This cozy was loads of fun to read - the characters often had me laughing out loud and the information about brewing beer was very interesting.

Craft beer has exploded in recent years, and while there are plenty of non-fiction titles on the subject, no one has really integrated it into fiction until now.

Death On Tap takes craft beer and makes it front and center in a small town murder mystery. The author mixes the art of brewing with the greater story in this easy-read.

Though there are some incorrect facts related to brewing, it's great to see someone highlight craft beer in their story and do so in such a thorough way. Pickup a copy and see if you can figure out who did it in this beer-filled adventure.

A very fun beginning, it sure made me want to read more to see what happened in the love life of the heroine (and I typically don't like relationship stuff in cozy mysteries). Well done!

Death on Tap by Ellie Alexander is a fantastic book that will excite cozy mystery fans.
Sloane Krause is a brew master, crafting unique beers for her family's brewery and pub.
During an unexpected visit to the brewery on her day off, Sloane interrupts a heart wrenching scene, her husband Mac, having sex with a new barmaid.

Feeling devastated and betrayed, Sloane walks out of the brewery, eager to wipe the scene from her brain.
Seeking the help of her brother in law, Hans, Sloane finds herself working at a new pub/brewery.

When a new hops grower appears in town, it shakes up the other brewers, and heated words are exchanged.
When one of the men is found floating in a vat of beer at Sloane's new place of employment, chaos ensues and Sloane can't help but get involved. She just doesn't want answers, she wants her husband not to be the number one suspect.

This is a great start to a new series and I enjoyed getting to know all the colorful characters in this story.
The story is well written and the words flowed smoothly and the pages turned quickly as I was deep into the plot.
This is certainly a great book added to the cozy mystery genre.
I voluntarily read an ARC of this book provided by the publisher and NetGalley.

This was a very intriguing book with a well-brewed mystery that simmered throughout rising to a rapid boil that quickly became a page turner as I could not put it down until it was all said and done. From the introduction of the various characters that take part in this light whodunit, we get to know a little about each and the role they play as each interaction brings us closer to the killer’s identity. The staging matched the pacing and the flow of this multi-plot drama creating an exciting adventure where the suspects were few but coming up with the motives made it interesting as the story progressed towards an ending that left me wanting more. The author did a great job in blending the ins and out of the brewery business and interspersing in the hows and whys in this beguiling mystery. Sloan is a strong and determined heroine and I would like to learn more about her past. Rounding out the cast is an eclectic group of people who bring their own insight into this debut novel. This was a pleasantly appealing tale and I can’t wait to read the next book in this likable series.

This is the first in a new cozy mystery series by Ellie Alexander about Sloan, a brewer who works in a brewery owned by her in-laws. Since her husband has taken up with an employee ('the beer wench') and she needs some space to work out her future, she takes a job with a new-to-town brewer. When a rival brewer is found in one of their brewtanks and her husband is a suspect, Sloan decides to see if she can clear his name.

The main character is also in a crossover standalone story in the other series by this author (Bakeshop mysteries) called Trouble Is Brewing.
I really enjoyed the pacing of this mystery, though the actual murder and 'whodunnit' seemed almost incidental to the plot and character development. I was surprised by the denouement and expected a few more twists, but the writing is very solid and I look forward to the next in the series.

Either the author is a brewer herself or this book is extremely well researched. I found the background and brewing information really interesting. She's serious about her beer!