Movie Review: Beer Wars ( or as I Would Call It “August Busch IV and Me”)

This was a really good documentary on the current state of the current micro vs. macro breweries in the United States. Following the owners of both the floundering New Century Brewing company, and the thriving Dogfish Head company, the movie shows a light on the struggles that smaller brewers go through just to get your attention and dollar, and overall is a great movie on the subject,  being both very informative and entertaining.

While I will suggest this movie to any beer drinker, I feel that too much focus of the movie is spent attacking Anheuser Busch’s product, suggesting that Americans drink macro brewed beer only due to uneven access to distribution and dubious marketing strategies. I can agree that craft breweries need a means to greater access to the market, but ultimately the reason that basically two companies sell 95% of the beer produced in the United States is that they make a product that is non offensive to most palates and sell it at a cheap price. 

Adjunct breweries might not make the most interesting or well crafted beers, but sometimes a cheap, forgettable beer is what one wants.

Anyone, including the producers of this film, who suggests that drinkers of Miller/Coors/Budweiser are victims to marketing are overlooking that smaller breweries often also producing boring and bad ales, stouts and IPAs, and getting a pass on how they present themselves to consumers.  

Pope Crisco