Filmmaker Notes

Had someone told me that one day I’d make a film about the beer industry, I would have had them institutionalized. Not only am I not a beer drinker (more on that later) but I knew virtually nothing about the beer business until the fall of 2001. That’s when an old friend called to ask for my help with his new company mike’s hard lemonade. Suffice to say that I got drawn in and ended up running this entrepreneurial company. It was way more complex than I could have imagined. Our competitors included Anheuser-Busch, Miller and Coors and they didn’t exactly put out the welcome mat. The characters I met were straight out of the movies. It was tough and messy. And I loved every moment of it. But eventually, the challenge was gone and I chose to move on.

I took some time off to figure out what I wanted to do next. I couldn’t get away from beer. I was reminded of it whenever I watched TV, went to the store, or passed by a billboard or neon sign. It haunted me.

When I received an invitation to the annual beer industry convention (I was still on the mailing list), it sparked an idea. What if I got permission to film it; After all, the big players were all going to be under one roof and I could see if there was a story to be told. You should know that I had never made a documentary film before so this whole adventure started as a dare. Everyone told me that I would never get access, especially since this event is not open to the public.

But after checking me out and getting assurances that I wasn’t funded by Wal-Mart (I still don’t know why that worried them), I headed to Las Vegas with a crew of 6 and trunks full of cameras, lights and sound equipment. Essentially I went looking for a story.

I got complete access so I started filming, sit down interviews, stand up interviews, I even got permission to film the parties and the trade show. Everywhere we went, we heard grumbling about the decline in mainstream beer sales. It seemed that innovation was now coming from the small players instead of the giants. The highlight was an interview with Rhonda Kallman who had left Sam Adams to launch her own company. Her tenacity and energy were inspiring.

The buzz at the convention was all about the burgeoning craft beer movement. I decided to follow up since it was a world I knew nothing about. A few weeks after the glitz and glamour of Las Vegas, I took the crew and headed to Denver for the Great American Beer Festival (GABF). I was the quintessential fish out of water.

OK, here it comes. I can’t drink. Yes, I said can’t. And no, I don’t have a problem. I’m allergic to alcohol. So as you can see, my interest was never in the beer itself. (Although I must admit there were times I would have killed for a sip.) This liberated me to focus on the business itself.

The GABF was crazy. The antithesis to the big beer convention. This was a consumer show and there were tens of thousands of them. Drinking. I went looking for my other lead. By now I had decided to follow Rhonda’s launch of Moonshot, the first beer with caffeine. I wanted to find someone who represented these craft brewers. So I did what I used to do in Hollywood, I cast for him. I was working my way through the 10 pre-arranged interviews when I met Sam Calagione. But it’s not what you think. It wasn’t his good looks that got me. It was his down to earth, take no prisoners attitude. He wasn’t afraid to speak the truth. I asked Sam if he wanted to “star” in the movie. I’m not sure how many beers he’d had that evening, but he said yes.

So the story began to take shape. The independent brewers vs. the big corporate players. The timing was right. An increasing number of Americans were interested in making their own choices and not kowtowing to the corporate marketing machine. Whether in coffee, cheese, chocolate, locally grown produce, people were willing to experiment and explore, even if it meant paying a little more. Craft beer was a natural extension of this trend.

While following Sam and Rhonda during the production of the film, I realized that their struggles mirrored those of entrepreneurs in general, raising money, taking risks, getting their product to consumers, and managing growth. But what wasn’t typical was something that intrigued me when I first got into the beer business — the distribution system known as the three tier system. Sure, every industry has its hurdles but this was a unique obstacle course. No industry makes it harder for the entrepreneur to get to market than beer.

This system which was set up after prohibition to cure the evils of tied houses (when the brewers owned the saloons) and provide consumer choice has now, 75 years later, done the opposite. Yes, you have a larger selection of beers today when you go to the bar or store. But, and it’s a big but, you don’t necessarily know who is really behind the label of the beer you choose. And you may not care. But as I got into the story, I realized that I cared. A lot. Because, if you turn a blind eye, real choice may not be there tomorrow.

In trying to understand how this playing field could remain unbalanced for so long, I discovered an incredible connection between beer and politics. Something I knew nothing about even though I had worked in the industry. This totally fascinated me and led to a bigger investigation of the three tier system and why the big players are so intent to keep things exactly as they are. And why the independent brewers are threatening this 75 year old monopoly.

In order to get at the truth, I focused on the big picture and the industry as a whole. I wanted to not only look at the world from Sam and Rhonda’s perspective but also from the POV of other small brewers and of course, the corporate behemoths. To do that, I crisscrossed the country and traveled to more than 20 locations.

My goal was to interview experts on beer, distribution, retail, lobbying, everyone involved in the broader story of the beer industry and find the truth: what do the struggles of entrepreneurs like Sam and Rhonda say about American business in general? Is this a problem unique to the beer industry, or is it a sign of a much bigger issue? What does it say about our culture that we are so accepting of Corporate America’s dominance at all cost? And even more interesting: what does all this say about the American Dream?

By the time I was done filming and asking questions, I had almost 200 hours of material and the editing process began. I should note here that my film background has been in narrative filmmaking, it was all about following a script. I did not anticipate how tough it would be to tell this story without a blueprint. It took 18 months and multiple editors until I found my collaborator in Doug Blush. Together, we took this beast of a movie and shaped it into the story I wanted to tell. I hope it was worth it.

Anat Baron, February 2009