A Pint Half Full

I was browsing around my Netflix streaming library and saw the movie "Beer Wars" available for streaming.  I thought perhaps this movie was like "Beerfest", a comedy about a beer olympic competition.  Far from it, "Beer Wars" is a documentary about the beer industry in America, attempting to explain why the "Big Three" beer companies dominate the market and how difficult it is for smaller breweries to gain marketshare and bring their products to the masses.  The documentary pretty much demonizes the Anheuser-Busch, Miller, and Coors companies and makes you want to never buy or drink their products again.  It highlights Dogfish Head Brewing as an up and coming brewery trying to make its mark on the beer world and contrasts the passion of one man to the profit-scheming of corporations.   The director, Anat Baron, is pretty annoying as the narrator (see Michael Moore), admits that she is allergic to alcohol, and was the CEO of Mike's Hard Lemonade prior to making this movie (which knocked her credibility down a bit for me - that stuff is weak!).  However, it's a decent documentary, creating this David vs Goliath story and portraying the craft beer world with love and passion.  I did not like the extreme bias against and repeated hatred for the larger brewing companies (we get it!) and the following of one story line which seemed to contradict the agenda the movie was trying to promote.  Read on for more of my thoughts.

Of course it's biased to the small breweries and as a beer-lover, I loved watching Sam Caligione of Dogfish Head talk about beer and just spew passion for his craft.  To watch the story of him starting out homebrewing and then growing the Dogfish Ale Brewery in a state that did not allow any breweries (Delaware... I'm in Delaware) was inspiring.  He seemed like a down to earth guy who just loves making cool beers and gets to do it as his job.  The urge to expand is there, but only at a pace where he can control the growth and maintain the quality and creativity that got Dogfish Head to where they are today.


Similarly, the Boston Beer Company was highlighted as a brewery that started out as one man with passion and trying to maintain the original vision in the midst of success.  Really cool to hear these stories and how they continue to try to compete and bring innovation and new flavors to beer enthusiasts as well as bring quality beer to those who have not had it before.

The documentary also presented a story about a woman, Rhonda Kallman, who was dead set on bringing what I'd call a gimmicky beer to the market called Moonshot.  This beer has caffeine in it.  Since she used to work with Jim Koch at Boston Beer Company to bring Sam Adams to the masses, I gave her the benefit of the doubt.  But this Moonshot has fail written all over it.  I could not get into her story.  What did a beer like this have to do with craft beer vs macrobrews?  Didn't Anheuser-Busch try to sell a beer with caffeine with much failure?  Isn't this not what the documentary is about?  She ended being annoying and I didn't even think she honestly believed in the beer she was trying to market but ended up blaming the big breweries.


Finally, about half the movie is dedicated to bashing Anheuser-Busch, Miller and Coors.  The documentary highlighted the marketing schemes, the monopoly they have on the distribution and selling of their product, and the watered down version of beer they serve.  Any attempt at new products and flavors are evil and trying to push out the little man.  All this is probably true and it was cool to have an inside look at the industry.  It just got a bit boring after a while.