Beer Wars

When I was in first grade I lived in McAllen, Texas and attended an elementary school named Wilson. Near Wilson Elementary school was a candy store where me and the other students would get free candy if we did well on in school. Every semester we would bring our report cards to the store's owner and he would hand out red licorice for A's and black licorice for B's. The red licorice was great. It tasted like fruit; it had a nice texture; and it was even a cool color:red. The black licorice on the other hand was awful. For me, it tasted like candy gone wrong and it left your teeth black. Just dreadful. Well, I don't know if it was that I didn't like the taste of black licorice, or if I just a little "over-achiever" and didn't like B's,* but from that point on I always remember associating black licorice with something bad. In fact even today, when forced into taking shots of Jagermeister, all I can think of is that stupid store's demeaning "black-licorice-for-B's" policy.**

(*)Which I would have plenty of over the course of my academic career.
(**) It seems like no matter how hard I try, there will inevitably be someone I'm near that wants to do a shot of Jäger.

It's funny how a bad taste can stay in your mouth from one small association in life. That's why every time someone tells me they don't like a certain food, liquor or beer, I always wonder if there is an association to go along with this dislike. These associations are what I couldn't help but think of as I was watching Beer Wars, a documentary which chronicles the battle between beer's big breweries and micro breweries for real-estate in the U.S's collective beer gut.

The premise of the movie seemed to be that if micro-breweries could just show the average "American style lager drinking people" (think Bud Light, Miller Lite, Coors Light) how much better tasting a micro-brewery beer is, then the people's taste would be converted and brought away from the dark (licorice) side. However, as I learned early on in life, there is much more to taste than just taste.

Unfortunately, taste is never really discussed in this documentary, at least not in any nuanced sort of way, rather Beer Wars seems to just take it for granted that most people would agree that the taste of micro-breweries is better than the big breweries.*

(*)Although for the most point I tend to agree with this point.

Despite the absence of the subject of taste, a point which we'll come back to later, Beer Wars did prove to be somewhat entertaining as a movie and extremely informative as a history on the subject of beer in the U.S. The director/producer/writer and sometimes narrator of this documentary, Anat Boran, was the former head of Mike's Hard Lemonade.* Her previous position at Mike's gave her the "street cred" to gain access to a wide variety of different events, such as the Great American Beer Festival as well as access to people in the industry such as higher ups at Anheuser Busch, Sam Adams, Dogfish Head and Odell.

(*)Now this background on Boran was given early enough in the movie that it did not prove distracting, however I found it odd that Boran never discusses the disconnect between Mike's Hard Lemonade and the other craft beers she seems to be championing. And maybe I'm wrong, but I still can't take Mike's Hard Lemonade as a serious option for a beer drinker. I see how it can be relevant for someone who likes/D(?) Zima, or wine coolers, but not to a person who drinks beer.

Unfortunately, Boran's presence in the film sometimes seemed sudden and illogical. As the viewer starts to become interested in some of the people she follows such as the head of Dogfish Head, Sam Caligione and the former VP of Sam Adams, Rhonda Kallman, Boran's voice comes out of nowhere as voiceover as if to belabor the point that she's involved in the project.

While I thought Boran's voiceover was one of the weaker parts of the film, the stronger aspects came through the movie's history lessons on beer distributing such as the segment on the "three tier system." This system was originally set-up to protect the consumer from "bad brewer practices" by adding a third party: the distributor. However, the documentary is quick to explain how the distributor, once a safeguard, is now used as a device for the big brewing companies to create monopolies. It was subjects like the "three tier system" that kept me interested in watching this documentary.

When the documentary was finished, I couldn't help but come back to the subject of "taste," because it is a subject that I believe is so often wrongly explored. Now don't get me wrong, I don't have the palette of a great chef, or a sommelier, however, I don't think the "Chef" and "Somm" represent the average consumer. Moreover, I do not think anyone can ever taste anything in isololation. Your favorite margaritas are more than likely at your favorite Mexican restaurant where you've probably had a lot of good times. Your favorite food may be your mom's King Casserole, not because of the balance of flavors, but more likely because you associate "the King" with a certain time in your life. And no matter how much you hate the big breweries and their--in my opinion-- crappy beer, they try hard to be everywhere that you might be having a good time. So in the end, I think in order for micro-breweries to be successful (sell enough to make profit) they are going to not only have to make good beer, but also to promote an experience that will go along with their good beer. In other words they need to be the red licorice, not the black.