My Two Cents on Beer Wars
I saw Beer Wars on Thursday, and I’ve gotta say, it lived down to my low expectations. I doubted director Anat Baron’s ability to document the craft brewing world early on when she describes her background as working for Mike’s Hard Lemonade. I don’t know what that stuff is, but it isn’t beer.
The only person in the film from the craft brewing world who gets significant coverage is Sam Calagione of Dogfish Head. Baron focuses on him as an example of the little guy battling the big guys. Considering he’s spending $9 million dollars on a new brewing facility, it’s hard to consider him a little guy, but some of the Calagione stuff is interesting. There are also a few soundbites from Michael Jackson, Charlie Papazian, Stone’s Greg Koch and New Belgium’s Kim Jordan and a couple minutes of the Great American Beer Fest. Those parts were cool, but it would’ve been nice to see a more thorough overview of craft brewing.
The biggest flaw of the film is the focus on Rhonda Kallman and her Moonshot caffeine beer. Moonshot is a marketing gimmick, not a craft beer. It has absolutely nothing to do with craft beer. While the film portrays her as an underdog struggling to survive among the beer giants, I didn’t feel any sympathy for her, even when her kids are crying or her husband says they might lose everything if Moonshot fails. Before this, she was the number two person at Sam Adams, the biggest indie brewery in the country. She had a good thing going and she risked it for a gimmick like caffeine beer. Why the hell should we feel sorry for her?
A final complaint is the director’s Michael Moore act. She uses some of his gimmicks, like inserting herself into too many scenes, or shoving microphones in people’s faces and asking stupid questions. She also makes a lame Roger and Me attempt to get an interview with August Busch IV.
Can I say anything positive about the film? Well, I was wrong to think I wouldn’t learn anything from it. Baron does a pretty good job of detailing the ins and outs of the beer business. The section about the three-tier system is solid. Still, I think she could’ve dug a little deeper. For instance, how about breweries like Red Hook, Widmer and Goose Island signing distribution deals with Anheuser-Busch?
One other thing I liked was the archival footage and clips. Yeah, some of it looked crappy on the big screen compared with the slickness of the rest of the film, but it added a needed dose of humor and made the movie more entertaining.
Overall, the movie was a disappointment. It was worth seeing but could’ve been so much better. I didn’t stay for the panel discussion, so I can’t complain about that, but I heard from others that the misplaced moderator Ben Stein was out of his element. If you didn’t pay $15 to see it on the big screen, you’ll probably be able to watch the film on DVD soon. I’m thinking that’s what I should’ve done…
April 20, 2009 at 5:58 am
It seems like you really did not enjoy the movie so much, and for good reasons. A caffeinated beer is the ultimate poor man’s speedball – and I don’t mean that in a good way. Your review makes me really glad I did not skip my softball game for a $15 movie that did not deliever on its promises. The chances of me checking it out on DVD are now pretty slim too. Thanks for the heads up.