Below is the complete list of Ellie Alexander’s Sloan Krause books in order. For this series, the chronological reading order is the same as the order of publication.
Publication Order of Sloan Krause Books
Publication Order of Sloan Krause Mystery Shorts Books
About Sloan Krause
Ellie Alexander’s Sloan Krause series is a cozy mystery sequence set in Leavenworth, Washington, a Cascade Mountain town styled after a Bavarian village. Its breweries, beer gardens, alpine architecture, tourist festivals, and snowy streets give the books a distinctive identity within culinary crime fiction. At the center is Sloan Krause, an experienced craft brewer whose sensitive palate and knowledge of fermentation prove surprisingly useful when murder disrupts Leavenworth’s carefully manufactured cheer.
Death on Tap begins as Sloan’s personal and professional lives collapse together. After discovering that her husband, Mac, is having an affair, she leaves her position at Der Keller, the brewery operated by his family. The separation costs her more than a marriage. Having grown up in foster care, Sloan regarded Mac’s parents, Otto and Ursula, as the first dependable family she had known. Walking away from Der Keller means risking those relationships while attempting to preserve stability for her teenage son, Alex.
Sloan finds a new beginning at Nitro, a smaller and more experimental brewery established by Garrett Strong. Their working partnership gives her creative freedom after years within the Krause family business, allowing her to develop seasonal ales, unusual flavor combinations, and a professional identity independent of her marriage. Garrett also becomes an important emotional presence, although Alexander lets their relationship develop alongside Sloan’s divorce, family responsibilities, and uncertainty about trusting another person.
Each full-length novel places a separate murder within one of Leavenworth’s businesses, celebrations, or seasonal traditions. Oktoberfest, local elections, IceFest, Maifest, ski season, film production, brewery expansion, and disputes over tourism all create motives involving reputation, money, competition, and civic influence. The setting may appear whimsical, but its dependence on visitors creates genuine pressure. A scandal can ruin a business, a political decision can threaten the town’s economy, and outsiders arriving for a festival may bring conflicts that local residents never anticipated.
The brewing material is more than a decorative theme. Sloan considers ingredients, yeast, hops, fermentation, sanitation, equipment, food pairings, and the challenge of creating a beer suited to a particular season. Nitro’s taproom also functions as a social crossroads where residents exchange news and visitors reveal more than they intend. Brewing requires patience, sensory judgment, and close attention to small changes—the same habits Sloan brings to an investigation.
Beneath the individual mysteries runs a longer story concerning Sloan’s origins. Her childhood in foster care left her with incomplete information about her biological family, and later discoveries force her to reconsider what she believes about abandonment, identity, and the people who raised her emotionally if not legally. The Cure for What Ales You brings that search into direct contact with a murder, making Sloan’s history part of the central investigation rather than a background detail.
The main sequence contains six full-length novels, concluding with Beer and Loathing, along with shorter installments such as Hold on for Beer Life, A Brew to a Kill, and Ale I Want for Christmas Is a Clue. The earlier mini-mystery Trouble Is Brewing brings Sloan together with Jules Capshaw from Alexander’s Bakeshop mysteries before Death on Tap. These shorter works add brewery episodes and crossover material, but the numbered novels carry Sloan’s divorce, relationship with Garrett, search for her family, and changing role at Nitro. Publication order therefore preserves the series’ most important progression: a woman rebuilding her life one batch, one relationship, and one suspicious death at a time.