Beer Movie

Among the long list of documentaries my wife and I have been watching lately, the latest is “American Beer ”. This was moderately interesting to watch but only if you truly love craft beers. This documentary is about a group of six guys that go on a road trip to see 38 brewpubs in 40 days. For me the main appeal with this film was the great interviews they got from the brewers/owners who threw their nuts on the dashboard and mashed the throttle to make a go at starting a microbrewery before the brewpub/craft brewing craze really got started. The exception would be the interview with the RedHook founder he was kind of a dick. There beer has gone to pot anyway since their partial sellout to AB. The 6 guys (really only 5 since the 6th was doing the filming) didn’t bring a lot to the table but was still watchable. Their selection of breweries was pretty good with the likes of Pelican, Dogfish, Anchor Steam etc. until the next to the last stop at New Belgium. Whaaa?! I cannot stand New Belgium. The beers I have tried just don’t do anything for me. The Fat Tire Amber just seems a little light in the malt area. Of course I tend to compare all ambers against Full Sail Amber in color and body. But honestly it is not the taste that bothers me as much as their graphics on the bottle. Something about it just irritates me I don’t know what it is. Could it be there successful marketing that Fat Tire is available almost everywhere? I’m sure they have plenty of beers at the brewpub that are great but I would have a hard time trying them after Fat Tire. Anyway I digress back to the movie. These guys who in my opinion spent too much time boozing on the east coast try a little too hard to be funny and made only a few stops in Oregon and one or two in Washington. I was hoping they would have hit some of my favorites although lesser known say New Old Lompoc, Roots Brewing, Lucky Lab or even Tugboat Brewing as one of the smallest brewpubs in Portland. Oh well.