Beer Wars

source: Beer Wars

I've started getting interested in beer the past year or so, but I didn't know a whole lot about the insides of the industry. Beer Wars does a good job of showing how things work (like the three-tiered system and the shelving schematics) that I would never have known otherwise. However, I was hoping for a little more coverage when it came to small breweries. The main focus was on Dogfish Head and Moonshot; I was really hoping to see at least a little talk about Beervana (aka: Oregon). The message of the documentary also seems a little redundant to any self-respecting beer drinker, but I suppose it gave us more reasons to stay away from A-B and the like.

When this film begins, it's a bit misleading. I can forgive this, but the narrator talks as if the USA is THE beer-drinking capital of the world. And, while the USA has a huge corporate presence, American's, on average, are NOT that big on drinking beer--at least compared to several other beer-guzzling nations. No, the Czech Republic, Ireland and Germany FAR surpass the States when it comes to beer consumption. So, I am sorry, but although the craft beer industry has grown remarkably and Miller and Budweiser are big-name beers, we just aren't that into beer as a country. Two sources find the USA #13 in per capita beer consumption (Wikipedia and CNBC). So, take the opening remarks with a grain of salt. Now where the film gets it right is discussing how much of the US beer market is dominated by mega-corporations that market the heck out of their products. And, that there is a much, much smaller and less advertising-savvy craft beer market--but the deck is clearly stacked against them. This is also like the soft drink industry--where Coke and Pepsi dominate though there isn't a qualitative difference between the products of most companies. It's all in the marketing, marketing, marketing. Now that is worth talking about and is the major thrust of this film. Here is the rub, however--although I think micros make great beer and the corporations make crap, the American public (and a greater and greater number of people around the world) seem to like terrible beer that has little flavor or personality. So, even if the majors use unfair business tactics, this is not THE reason their products sell. And this is something the film never really addresses. Mass-produced bland beer is popular...period. While I brew my own beer and have tasted well over 2000 beers, there still were some surprises in this documentary. For example, Green Valley Brewery makes an organic highly-hopped beer---and it's actually made by Anheuser-Busch! Now I knew that these folks made Shock Top and a few other craft-style beers, but at least these say Anheuser-Busch on the label--not so with Green Valley! How sneaky. I also was unaware about the nuisance lawsuits against Dogfish Head--which just seems like bullying considering Anheuser-Busch is so huge and Dogfish Head is just a speck on the beer brewing scene. Overall an interesting but occasionally flawed film. I enjoyed it and it had some very good points to make. FYI--Moon Shot's caffeine beer has been retired because the FDA didn't like the idea of beer and caffeine (what business is it of theirs?!). I checked with the Beer Advocate website and it had the lowest possible rating! Apparently it was NOT a particularly good beer despite it being featured in the film and this might be a case where the government, inadvertently, did something to help us!

Overall a good movie. I was hoping for a bit more on different micro-brew's, they only focused on a few. The ones they did focus on they did a good job showing their disadvantage. As a libertarian I have to disagree with the prevailing opinion of the movie. Big Beer isn't evil their competitive. They use their power to leverage government to make it hard for the little guys to compete. With out the government rules I would have Magic Hat in Las Vegas!!! They did show how prohibition killed most of the craft beers. Worth the time to give it a watch. It does a good job showing how hard it is to get a craft beer off the ground. It does a bad job showing you all the breweries around the country and what they have to offer. Once a micro brew makes it big, their no longer a micro brew.

A contemporary David and Goliath story that takes you inside the cutthroat world of the big business of American beer. Yes, it's absurdly biased. Yes, it's really a puff piece. Yes, you really can't believe the self-PR spewing of these beer makers. Like the term Honeymoon came from beer makers in Africa!!! What orifice was that pompous ditty pulled out of? And of course, the question remain, if craft brews were sooo good, how come so few people (relatively speaking) buys them? The truth is most craft brews have great labels and brand names, but you wouldn't drink them every day. And then you have Koch, CEO of Sam Adams trying to convince you he's one of the little guys. He's a billionaire. I'm not saying he doesn't deserve it, but I am saying he's minimizing his place at the table for PR sake. And BTW I brew beer at home, so I'm a prime market for this crap. But it's still a fun and watchable movie.

Being a self-proclaimed "Beer Snob", I found Beer Wars to be an entertaining documentary, yet as other reviewers have noted, it is pretty clear that the film maker, Anat Baron, had an agenda against Anheuser-Busch (and to a lesser extent, the other two big brewers, Millers and Coors). Don't get me wrong, I'm no fan of Anheuser-Busch and don't buy any of their products, but their portrayal in the film came off as a bit too mean spirited in my book. The thing is, it didn't need to be. It could have just presented the facts and that alone would have shown what a crazy monopoly Anheuser-Busch has. Things like the law suit they slapped on Dogfish Head for their Punkin' Spice and Chickory Stout beer names goes a log way to show how these people do business. That spoke for itself. But certain segments, like when they show employees from Millers and Coors doing nice extra-curricular activities and enjoying a beer after work with their co-workers, and then Anat saying that she didn't see any of that "comradery" at Anheuser-Busch, was a bit too much of a blanket assumption on her part, given she was probably just given a small tour of their headquarter brewery. If it was an Anheuser-Busch employee making that statement, that would be different, but it wasn't. It was just the film-maker's assumption after one visit to the brewery. The film does educate on certain aspects of the industry which are not "common knowledge" and those segments are very entertaining. Things such as how beer is displayed in a supermarket and how much influence the "big 3" have in deciding the layout, is surprising. So was the 3 Tier system segment, covering how beer gets from the brewer to the consumer and having to go through distributors. My favorite parts of the film were whenever it would follow Sam Calagione from Dogfish Head or Jim Koch from Samuel Adams. Being a big fan of both those breweries it was a great "behind-the-scenes" look at how they work and what it took to get to where they are now. I can watch a documentary just on Dogfish Head alone. Very good stuff. And then there were some segments which seemed to be just for fluff/show. Like the blind taste test of Coors Light, Bud Light and Miller Lite. Initially, this seems like a good test to show that most people can't tell those apart, but I am not too sure what she was trying to prove. All those beers are of the same style. American Light Lagers. Of course they are supposed to taste similar. If you put three delicious IPA's in front of me, I'm not sure I'll be able to successfully tell you which is which brand, since their flavor characteristics are so similar. Same with three Stouts, 3 different brand of vodka, etc. Overall I did enjoy the film, as it had plenty of informative parts, but it could have benefited from not taking the low road and bashing Anheuser-Busch as much as it did. Like I mentioned, it could have made its point without the sensationalized parts.

This documentary follows along with Dogfish Head brewery as they are expanding, and the creator of Moonshot beer (beer with caffeine) as she attempts to make her beer successful. This documentary is very one sided, glorifying the little guys and bashing the giants, mostly Anheuser-Busch. The main message seems to be that large corporations have a strong hold on the beer industry, leaving little room for microbreweries have much success. Even though this movie is very biased and the director/narrator Anat Baron is very obnoxious and gets quite annoying throughout the film, it is still enjoyable to see this insider look at the beer industry. Overall, its interesting, fairly enjoyable to watch, and worth checking out, but it could have been a lot better.

This documentary changed my views as to how my family and I should spend our money on beer. Avoid Anheuser-Busch because they do what is in their power to stop these small time brewers like Dogfish Head. They can control how the self's at stores are stocked; they bring lawsuits against brewers that are struggling to survive. As soon as a type of beer becomes a hot commodity they snatch it up and eliminate all of those opposing. I think the documentary did a great job of highlighting this and definitely changes my position on support certain companies. I will not support the following brands do to their affiliation with Anheuser-Busch Company, Rolling Rock, Widmer Bros, Bacardi, Wild Blue, Busch, Bud Light, Budweiser, and Natural Ice. Watch it and I am sure you will join me.

The movie is fairly well done for a documentary. The information flows rather well and the points they bring up are interesting enough aside from the fairly touchy section towards the middle. You will quickly find out though that this is simply a long piece of bashing towards the major beer companies. Try to keep in mind that the major companies are now the top of the industry for a reason. Its easy to say that its because of their advertising but keep in mind that they didn't start out of the gate with million dollar advertising campaigns. Its fine that these brewers feel that they are adding something to the industry, but that doesn't mean that the companies that have done well are taking away. After all if one of these small brewers achieved incredible success, they would perform exactly as bush or miller have. They would promote their brand and try to maximize sales. Its kind of the idea of business. Alright documentary, but keep an eye on the massive bias when watching it and the small brewers end up coming off as rather arrogant.

This is a very entertaining documentary about an inherently fun subject. You can't go wrong with Beer Wars if you're looking for a fun way to spend 90 minutes. However, I'd like to mention what I consider a misconception among many of the other reviewers. The common interpretation seems to be that the movie is bashing the big beer companies, claiming that Anheuser-Busch, Coors, and Miller are destroying innovation and entrepreneurship among micro-brewers. If you pay attention closely though, the chief problem in the dynamic between large mega-brewers and small-scale innovators is not a corporate problem, but a political one. It's not an issue of "corporate greed" so much as regulatory capture which protects large incumbents at the cost of small upstarts. This is made clear about an hour in, when the ridiculous "3-tier" alcohol vending system is explained. The extent to which the large companies will lobby to defend this outdated, worthless system reveals how incredibly important this political advantage is to them. It's clear that if brewers like Dogfish Head and Moonshot were allowed to decide for themselves how to distribute and retail their product, they would face far fewer barriers to entry and expansion. This, to me, is the core "message" of this film -- that the large incumbents are not guilty of aggressive capitalism, but rather of politically subverting the free market in order to cement their market share and prevent competition.