Is anyone aware of any movies/ shows/ documentaries that are related to the brewing process? Whether it’s Netflix/ Hulu, or something purchased I’m just looking for something to sit and watch on the couch after a long day of work!
Not explicitly about brewing, but The A Word from the BBC has a major subplot about a family taking over a microbrewery in the Lake District. Given that it’s been well-received and is current (3rd series just started) I imagine it will be available on a US platform.
Oz & James Drink To Britain (apparently renamed to James May Drinks to Britain in the US) is a pleasant enough travelogue/pub crawl/documentary where they visit various drink producers (beer features in most episodes somewhere), submit some homebrew to a competition and so on. It’s kind of a Top Gear for drinking (so as more about the presenters than cars/drink) but it’s engaging enough, I personally preferred the predecessor Oz & James’s Big Wine Adventure which was going round French vineyards.
There’s lots of British TV set in pubs (not least featuring heavily in our big soap operas like Eastenders and Coronation St) but Early Doors is one of those that didn’t get much attention at the time but has retained a cult following, I guess it’s a bit like if Cheers was set in a northern English pub - a bit more dour, pretty slow moving but worth a watch. Mitchell & Webb’s Back is apparently returning for a second series this year so may have some profile across the pond - they play brothers taking on their father’s pub. I found the first series OK, IMDB’s 7.3 seems about fair.
Also a shout out for the film Sideways - it may be superficially about finding the perfect Pinot Noir but I think brewers could replace that with the perfect lager/cask bitter/NEIPA. A great soundtrack as well, which deserves better than laptop speakers.
If you poke around Youtube there’s lots of old footage of UK brewing.
Strange Brew, you hosier, eh, and another vote for Beerfest. These movies are comedies not informative at all but fun to watch. One of the German brothers in Beerfest is the main character in Last Man on Earth TV series.
Sometimes you will find some good stuff on YouTube. Occasionally I run into a slickly-made video about brewing and it always gets my brewing juices flowing. Just to see some guys in a UK brewhouse that was built in 1840 (or something) and describing their brewday, milling, mashing, etc. is awesome.
Honestly, any video showing brewers in the brewhouse doing their thing and contrasted by people out in the brewpub drinking the beer… that makes me want to brew. He’s back there with all the stainless and then people are in a bricked-over pub with cement floors with walls of taps and glasses of beer on the bar. Sign me up. It could be 11pm and I’d be rubbing my chin about firing up a batch.
If we’re talking online stuff, Beer Amongst the Belgians was a good one. It was meant to be a series, but it was never picked up:
There was also the Jamie Oliver show where he did the Belgium vs. UK beer thing. It wasn’t necessarily a great show, but it’s Belgium and I know the American judge pretty well: https://www.dailymotion.com/video/xwy9el
There’s a beer show on Amazon called “Beer Country”, about the brewing scene in South Africa. A lot of cooking/BBQ type stuff as well, pretty entertaining.
Help me out here. Not a movie, but a historical disaster. I’m thinking maybe New England in say the 1700’s early 1800’s. A huge brewery tank collapsed and flooded the town. Could be an interesting short.
Jim
Or maybe the London Beer Flood of 1814, when a vat of porter burst.
"On the afternoon of October 17th 1814 one of the iron rings around the tank snapped. About an hour later the whole tank ruptured, releasing the hot fermenting ale with such force that the back wall of the brewery collapsed. The force also blasted open several more vats, adding their contents to the flood which now burst forth onto the street. More than 320,000 gallons of beer were released into the area. This was St Giles Rookery, a densely populated London slum of cheap housing and tenements inhabited by the poor, the destitute, prostitutes and criminals.
The flood reached George Street and New Street within minutes, swamping them with a tide of alcohol. The 15 foot high wave of beer and debris inundated the basements of two houses, causing them to collapse. In one of the houses, Mary Banfield and her daughter Hannah were taking tea when the flood hit; both were killed."
Interesting. I can’t help but try to put “hot” and “fermenting” into context. Was the beer fermenting? Was it done? Was it actually wort that was boiling? Not trying to pick the story apart as much as I’m trying to understand what actually spilled out.