As you might expect from its name, “Beer Wars” takes a frothy look at the brewing industry.
But the documentary, which was shown at this past weekend’s Rehoboth Film Festival, also presents a fascinating, inside peek into the business of making beer and, more important, the struggle of small breweries to sell and survive against the might of giant corporations.
The battle is often referred to as a David vs. Goliath matchup. But that vastly overstates the size of the independent brewers compared to industry giants, particularly Anheuser Busch, which controls nearly 50 percent of the market. The largest independents, Yuengling and Boston Beer Co., which makes Sam Adams, each have one percent of the market.
Farther down is local champion Sam Calagione of Dogfish Head beer, brewed in Milton. Filmmaker Anat Baron talks to various brewers, large and small, but focuses on Calgione and Rhonda Kallman of Moonshot beer. Kallman helped found Boston Beer Co. with Jim Koch but left to start her own company.
But for me the movie belongs to Calagione because he’s an actual brewer. Calagione is shown with Dogfish Head employees mixing up a new brew, putting in new tanks at his Milton headquarters and pouring beer from a pitcher at a beer convention. In some ways, Kallman’s story is just as compelling – her attempts at gaining financing are painful to watch – but, unlike Calgione, she shows no joy in her product, whose selling point, oddly, isn’t taste so much as the fact it contains caffeine. (So you can get drunk but stay up longer? Great idea.)
A former head of Mike’s Hard Lemonade who knows the industry from the inside, Baron also illustrates the side of the business most beer drinkers never think about – the mind-boggling number of laws affecting the making of beer, the problems of distribution, the constant need to think of new ways to market your product.
But Baron keeps it light (but not tasteless like light beer!) by interspersing serious material with funny bits, such as the taste tests among drinkers who claim either Bud Light, Miller Lite or Coors Light as their favorite. They tell Baron they know their regular beer but picking it out in a blind test becomes a bigger challenge than they expected.
So if the big beers taste much the same, why do they sell? As Baron shows, it’s a lot like real estate: location, location, location. The real estate in question lies within your local liquor store’s refrigerator – eye level and easy to grab. Guess who’s got the marketing muscle to claim the best spots?
After the movie, my wife and I went to the festival tent and had a Dogfish Head beer. Both the movie and beer were very enjoyable.
“Beer Wars” will be available next year from Netflix, iTunes and Amazon. It’s on sale now for home viewing at beerwarsmovie.com
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