Death on Tap is a solid cozy mystery. It hits all the notes that I look for in a cozy mystery - Sloan is a smart, relatable main character; it is set in a charming town that I could imagine visiting; the supporting characters have just the right amount of personality; and the mystery is engaging.
I liked the details about brewing beer that Ellie Alexander included - it added to Sloan's authenticity.
I look forward to reading more of Ellie Alexander's books.

Death on Tap is a good start to a new cozy series. I loved the Leavenworth, WA setting, as that is somewhere that I've wanted to visit. I want to even more so after reading this book!

The story is centered on the brewing world. Sloan works in her in-laws brewery, and there she finds her husband in flagrant delicto with a barmaid. She kicks him out and takes a job in a new brewery in town, but a body is soon discovered in a tank there. Sloan is soon caught up in the investigation.

Sloan was a great character, and as were the members of her husband's family and the owner of the new brewery in town. Her estranged husband was less likable. This is a series that shows great promise, based on this first book!

Oh my gosh, did I love this story! I must admit the author has left this wide open for a sequel. This was not only a good wholesome mystery but also a bit of romance. Hope the next book comes out soon.

I should have known that if the murder did not happen in the first twenty five percent of the book, that this was not a “who-done-it” and that the body floating in the fermenter was only an incidental part of the bigger picture.

Leavenworth, Washington is a Pacific Northwest destination town centered on beer with its Bavarian architecture and Oktoberfest banners. Sloan Krause and her husband Mac are brew masters for his family’s business Das Keller. All that came to a crashing halt when Sloan finds her husband in a compromising position with a barmaid and she wastes no time in heading off to the newest nanobrewery in town - Nitro.

All would have been fine and dandy if it was not for the body that they found floating in the tank at Nitro and fingers being pointed at Mac since he has a bit of a temper and a business on a downhill slide. Sloan wants to clear his name, if not for him, but for his aging parents that have been disappointed by Mac’s most recent antics and bad business deals.

This is where the book takes off in all sorts of directions and the idea of this being called a mystery left completely in the dust. This is a book about family, about beer and hops, about coming to terms with life in foster care and how people can take you in and make you one of their own. Plus, a murder that needed to be tied up since it was mention earlier in the book.

This is the first book in the Sloan Krause Mystery series that comes across as flat. The ending offers some interest in the next planned book, but as of now, I do not see myself waiting for its arrival.

Promising series debut centered on a female brewer in a microbrew intensive Pacific Northwest small town. The book opens with Sloan walking in on her husband cheating on her with a young "beer wench." She and her husband both work in his family's brewery and restaurant, so their splitup is complicated. Sloan finds a job as a brewer with another startup operation but almost immediately they are beset with problems -- the biggest of which is a body floating around in a beer vat.

Sloan is a very appealing character -- a product of the foster care system who vows to do better as a parent than what she experienced. The small town is close knit and Sloan's soon to be ex-inlaws are truly her real family. Lots of interesting details about the craft brew industry and well-drawn portraits of her friends and neighbors. The author is an experienced mystery writer and the narrative pace and writing quality are very good.

I received an ARC via Net Galley in return for my honest review.

I really enjoyed this story. I fell in love with the town and the characters and really enjoyed the insight into the craft beer world that ties everything together. While the murder isn't revealed until around chapter 12 and the discovery of the killer in the final chapters feels a bit rushed, i understand wanting to build depth of characters in starting a new series. I am looking forward to reading more in this series as they are published and looking for the author's previous series at our library.

Although I am not overly interested in craft beers, I really liked this book. Finding her husband with his pants around his ankles and the barmaid on her desk was enough to send her running. Helping Garrett start a new pub was just what she needed, until finding a dead man floating in one of the beer vats. I liked the pace of the story, the characters and the writing. First I've read by this author but will not be my last. Highly recommend this book and author. A great read, especially if you are a beer aficionado.

Death on Tap is the perfect start to this brand new cozy mystery series. The author does a wonderful job laying out the characters so that we can get to know them before the other books are published. She also writes an even better mystery than I am used too and I couldn't figure out the killer until the very end! I am looking forward to the next in the series. I think I am going to be hooked! Highly recommended!

I always ding Alexander's other series (A Bakeshop Mysteries) because they're so light on the mystery aspect so I wanted to give this one a try and see if it had more mystery elements. Well, a tiny bit more. At least Sloan participates in the sleuthing unlike one of the other books.

There's a whole lot of beer brewing talk, more than I ever wanted to experience. However, if Sloan was such a good brew master, why did she always seem to be baking (shades of Jules in the Bakeshop series)? I also wasn't thrilled that there may be a potential love triangle as in the other series with the female lead not 100% free and another guy possibly interested.

Regarding the mystery, I felt that what comes to light at the end was a bit implausible (or really dumb on the part of the police). The very end either sets up the next book or an element that may run through the series for a while until it's resolved. I'm curious to see how it unravels, but not sure I want to invest more time in what may be a very light mystery series.

I received my copy from Netgalley in exchange for my honest review.

This was my first book by Ellie Alexander, and the first in a new series. I really enjoyed the story and how she developed the characters and the story line.

The first line had me laughing as Sloan finds her husband cheating on her with a beer wench, but says she will always remember the sound of the German music as her town, which she calls Beeravia, prepares for Oktoberfest. The story moved along nicely, and I found the mystery interesting. I did guess who the killer was, but not until closer to the end, and I was surprised by the motive. I would definitely read more in this series and would recommend to others who enjoy mysteries.

I did like that this main character had faith in the police to do a good job, but was asked by the police to keep her ears open for gossip that she (the police) might not hear. This felt much more realistic to real-life.

One of the best things about reading mysteries is that, depending upon the setting, you can learn so many new things. This delightful cozy mystery is set in the world of beer brewing and will make you want to go to your neighborhood bar and drink a pint of your favorite brew. I learned a lot about what goes into making beer in addition to enjoying a good mystery with interesting characters, a delightful setting in the Bavarian themed town of Leavenworth, Washington and plenty of twists and turns. Sloan has been working in the microbrewery owned by her husband's family when, after 15 years of marriage, she finds him with one of the barmaids. Sloan then goes to work for Garrett at Nitro, his nanobrewery and after their opening night which featured a fight between Mac (Sloan's husband) and Eddie, another local brewer, Eddie is found dead in one of Nitro's fermenting tanks. When the police chief finds a lighter with Mac's initials on it on the floor of Nitro, she arrests him. Despite Sloan's anger at Mac she cannot believe he is a killer and gets involved in investigating herself. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and highly recommend it.