Beer Wars

Got home last night and sat down on the couch with a bomber of Deschutes Black Butte XXI and a copy of Beer Wars.  Both were pretty damn good, especially with my new Miller Lite Taste Activator Glass....what...?...it works...I think...

If you've been living under a macro-beer rock for the last six months, Beer Wars is a warts-n-all documentary made by the former president of Mike's Hard Lemonade about the beer business.  More specifically, craft beer versus the big beer companies.  Miller and Coors generally get off pretty easy here, as director Anat Baron sets her sights on industry bully Anheuser-Busch/InBev, their borderline monopoly and heavy-handed influence on the beer market.  She does a nice job of going deep into the macro breweries attempts at brain-washing through advertising and media saturation.  The one thing she doesn't say is it's our own fault.  America has a high percentage of sheep who believe everything they see on television, especially, but not restricted to, ridiculous beer marketing. They even believe reality television is real. There's a classic scene where devout Coors/Miller/Bud drinkers can't tell the difference between the 3 beers, showing that they obviously don't give much thought to what's in their hand.  She also gets into the daily battle for shelf space in stores, something we deal with all the time (and can't get free tickets for.....damn it).

While the movie is interesting and gets into some good stories, especially Sam Calagione's brewery expansion (and being sued by AB for using the word chicory in a beer name), the best highlights are probably just Greg Koch from Stone cutting up. For us beer geeks, the most interesting parts of this DVD are the deleted scenes and the post-movie panel discussion hosted by Ben Stein.  It looks like she agrees, as she's thinking of editing together some of the unused footage and has a page on the site where you can vote for who you'd like to see more of.  I wonder if she's got anymore Todd Alstrom beatdown footage? Awkward! Us beer geeks are mellow most of the time, except when non-craft brands try to pass themselves off as craft beer, it seems.

The thing that hits home most here is that we all wield power with our spending choices in the marketplace. Not just with what we drink, but with every company we choose to support by buying their products. When we blindly buy what they're selling, we're condoning the way they do business and enabling them. Unfortunately, most of us don't seem to care enough to be qualified to make those choices.

The only place you can buy the DVD is the Beer Wars site, for $19.99.  I'd say it's worth it, but the store bought a copy, so I'm not really qualified to......