Part One --- Part Two --- Part Three --- Part Four --- Part Five 

Part Six --- Part Seven --- Part Eight --- Part Nine --- Part Ten

Part Eleven --- Part Twelve --- Part Thirteen

NOTE: When I moved to a new site, this "Beer Wars" series was mangled/destroyed during the move. I've reconstructed it by copying/pasting another copy of the original posts. But that the damage meant that I also lost the comments in their original form. I've copied/pasted the comments, but had to do so under my own name. So although it looks as though I'm the only commenter, I'm not. In each case, I've identified the original commenter.

Gloomy story, eh? Not entirely. American winemakers have shown that it’s possible to convey a different message.

Prior to the 1960s, the American wine industry was almost non-existent. Sure, a few families in California made a handful of wines, which was consumed by a tiny consumer audience. But the operative words are “few,” “handful,” and “tiny.” During the 1960s, however, a handful of wine enthusiasts began building an American wine industry. (*1) They built an audience for their product by promoting it specifically as a beverage for everyday use in the most common of all events: eating.

Unlike brewers, who marketed beer as the handmaiden of professional sports and young men, and unlike distillers, who didn’t do much marketing at all (in part for legal reasons that made it very difficult to advertise any kind of spirits), winemakers touted wine as a beverage to enjoy every day, especially with food.

The wine industry also lobbied for laws that legalized on-premise sales at their wineries, which enabled vineyards to become “tourist” destinations, and maintained a coherent message about wine’s role in daily life: It tastes good with food. Drink it with your meal instead of coffee, tea, or milk. (*2)

Put another way, they un-demonized wine. The winemakers also worked together as an industry to craft a single, coherent message. As a result, wine has become a staple ingredient in the American home. When I was growing up, I don’t remember anyone having wine in the house. By the time I was in my 20s (in the 1970s), wine had become common even in “low end” restaurants.” By the 1980s, wine had become a staple in grocery stores and in the American home.

But again, wine is the exception to the rule. And of the three categories of alcohol — wine, beer, and spirits — brewers have the longest road to travel to change beer’s image from drink-of-frat-boys to sophisticated beverage best enjoyed with food.

Yes, I know that craft brewers are working hard to create a new image. Craft brewers avoid advertisements designed around babes in bare skin, and promote beer/food pairings. But they’ve got a long way to go.

In my opinion, and as I’ve said here before, their best bet is to appeal to consumers’ ecological concerns.

A compelling discussion about how to do that is in Daniel Goleman’s new book Ecological Intelligence. For example, consumers will respond to a “drink local” message, but they need to see/hear that message at the point-of-sale rather than in nebulous advertisements that appeal to concerns about image or status.

In the meantime, brewers will, I hope, begin thinking about the 3-tier system less as some insitutional evil than as a symptom of a deeper problem.

And with that, dear (and patient!) readers, I bring this rambling discourse to an end.

___________

*1: A truly good cultural history of the American wine industry is waiting to be written, but one place to start is Paul Lukacs, American Vintage: The Rise of American Wine.

*2: Winemakers lobbied for those laws in California in partnership with the half dozen or so craft beer makers, who wanted to sell beer at their “brewpubs.”

Part One --- Part Two --- Part Three --- Part Four --- Part Five 

Oh, hooray! I’m finally to the point that I wanted to make during the panel discussion after “Beer Wars.” Finally! How long has it taken me? (*1)

Thanks to post-Prohibition laws, alcohol manufacturers could no longer sell their products directly to retailers or consumers. Brewers, for example, had to sell their beer to a middleman, who then re-sold it to a retailer (like a grocery store or tavern). Thus the 3-tiers:

• the brewer.
• the wholesaler (also called the distributor).
• the retailer (eg, a tavern, grocery, or convenience store where people buy alcohol).

Over time the wholesalers have become powerful because they control access to store shelves and tavern taps. This makes it difficult for small beermakers like Sam and Rhonda to get their beer into consumers’ hands.

Sam, for example, has to persuade a wholesaler to handle his beer and place it on store shelves. If he can’t make a deal, he can’t sell much beer. (Obviously he’s made a lot of deals with distributors. But not all beermakers can say the same.)

The beer people on the panel argued that this means that wholesalers can and do prevent Americans from enjoying “real” beer. That Big Brewers and their evil sidekicks, the wholesalers, have duped Americans into drinking “bad” beer, and thereby prevent the  good guys —  the Real Brewers — from selling real beer.

I don’t deny that the wholesalers have power. I discussed this in my book. But I disagree about the problem that craft brewers face, and I think critics of the 3-tier system are confusing the messenger with the message, or the symptom with the disease.

In this case, the 3-tier system is a symptom of a deep-rooted disease: A national mindset that demonizes alcohol and infantalizes drinking. The three-tier system is the messenger conveying a single, powerful message: Booze is bad. People can’t be trusted to make decisions on their own. The 3-tier system reinforces that message, as do Sunday drinking laws, state-owned liquor stores, and all the other lunacy that prevents Americans from thinking of alcohol consumption as a normal accompaniment to daily life.

In my opinion, the 3-tier system and the Big Brewers don’t explain why Americans drink bad beer. We drink bad beer because  we don’t respect alcohol, and as a rule, human beings dismiss and denigrate things they don’t respect. We don’t drink bad beer because of corporate advertising that focuses on large-breasted women and farting Clydesdales. We buy into that advertising because it reinforces our mindset: Booze is bad, it’s not to be taken seriously. Drinking is shameful, juvenile behavior.

I know that many people, especially in the craft brewing industry, think ending the 3-tier system will solve all their problems. It won’t. Take away the distributors — and we’ll still be saddled with a national drinking culture that infantalizes drinking and demonizes alcohol.

Put another way: craft brewers don’t have trouble getting their message, and their beer, across to Americans because of evil corporate giants and distributors. They have trouble getting their message across because that message — beer is a sophisticated. complex beverage that should be treated with respect — flies in the face of prevailing wisdom.

Next: Yes, there is hope!

_____________

*1: Yes, I know: Too long. But this is a prime example of why the “sound bite” era is bad for critical thinking: it’s difficult to tackle complex issues in two-minute sound bites or half hour panels. Believe me, every person on the “Beer Wars” panel wanted to discuss and explain in greater detail and complexity.

Part One --- Part Two --- Part Three --- Part Four --- Part Five 

Finally, there’s the three-tier system.

The film portrayed the system as a weapon wielded by evil corporate giants who use it to hold down little guys like Sam and Greg, and to prevent Americans from gaining access to “real” beer.

I disagree.(*1) It’s not that simple, and to understand why, we need to know something about the history of the three-tier system. I know what you’re saying:

“Yeah, yeah. The 3-tier system was created after Prohibition. So what? The past is irrelevant. All that matters now is that the 3-tier system allows wholesalers to exercise too much power over beer distribution.”

Again, I disagree. The original reason for the 3-tier system is as relevant today as it was in 1933, and is connected to why craft brewers have a hard time getting their message across to consumers.

So. Short history lesson. Before Prohibition, breweries could own saloons and use them as retail outlets for their beer. Nearly every brewer owned one, and big brewers owned many of them. The prohibitionists believed that if they could outlaw the saloons, the brewers would have no place to sell beer and they would go out of business. (It’s not a coincidence that the group that spearheaded the drive to ban alcohol was named the Anti-Saloon League.) So they launched a (successful) campaign against the saloon, painting them as a threat to decency, law, order, and the family; as dens of iniquity that harbored criminal activity, such as gambling and prostitution.

The Prohibitionists made their point, and an entire generation of Americans grew up fearing the power of the saloon. So when Prohibition ended, Americans wanted to avoid the return of this alleged evil.To that end, lawmakers at the federal and state level passed hundreds of laws aimed at constructing barriers between Americans and alcohol: Sunday closing laws, the state-control of the sale of alcohol, liquor-by-the-drink laws, the power for localities to remain “dry” and so forth.

I wrote about this in a longish op-ed piece for U.S. News a few months ago, so I won’t repeat myself. You can read that piece here.

Next: The 3-tier system as vehicle for demonization.

Part One --- Part Two --- Part Three --- Part Four --- Part Five 

Yes, I’m almost at the end. This is part ten of thirteen. And no, I never intended to string this out so long, which has resulted, I’m afraid in a more disjointed rumination than I originally intended. (Nor did I realize Life was gonna get in my face the way it has the past week.)

During the panel discussion, Anat showed a clip of Todd criticizing Rhonda for not making “real” beer. The general drift was that she doesn’t make “real” beer, so she’s not a “real” beer person or a “real” entrepreneur. She’s not “authentic.”

The exchange floored me. If the craft people want to exclude someone like Rhonda from, say, their trade organization, fine. But it strikes me as disingenuous to believe that they, and they alone, have the power to decide what is “real” beer and what is not.

And that gets at the heart of the matter (or one of the hearts, for this is a creature of many hearts): If the craft people want real beer, great. But their passion and desire for real beer does not grant them the power to deny other kinds of beer to other people.

Why? Because this is, after all, the United States, where we all believe in the “religion” of choice. It’s a big world out there. I’m willing to allow the craft brewers their corner of the world, but they in turn ought, I think, be generous enough to accept and acknowledge that not everyone agrees with them and their view of beer, real or otherwise. Nor should they render moral judgment upon those who prefer one kind of beer over another.

This is the essence of why battling over religion itself is pointless: If five people believe in five different gods, it’s clear that the “ real god” is whatever one each believes in. If so, then by definition, there can’t be “one” god. So why insist that your view of god is the correct one?

(And of course if I had the answer to that question, I would in one swoop solve most of the world’s problems.)

But the subtext of that discussion was, of course, the Big Brewers. No one came right out and said it, but in effect, they’re regard Rhonda as a patsy for Big Brewers, and, like them, foisting “non-real beer” off on consumers.

I have another view: I think Rhonda, and the Big Brewers are simply giving Americans what they want, and to understand why, we need to turn to the other villain in this piece: the 3-tier system.

Part One --- Part Two --- Part Three --- Part Four --- Part Five 

Sorry to disappoint, but individualism and entrepreneurship are not particularly new, nor have Americans only recently learned to value them. Indeed, they are two of our most overt expressions of “freedom” and are two of the factors that make Americans and the U.S. unique. If that were not the case, millions of people would not have emigrated here. In the 19th century, for example, German emigres came here and opened breweries because entrepreneurship was valued in American society in a way that it was not in northern Europe.

Greg, Sam, Todd, Rhonda? They’re following in a fine American tradition: using the relatively unconstrained American legal and financial system — both of which are reflection of our American obsession with nurturing opportunity and individual liberty — to build businesses.

(I know that it seems like our governmental and legal systems are burdened with too many laws and regulations, but compared to other nations in the world, we live in a near-nirvana of tax-and-legal freedom.)

It’s also worth noting that during the panel discussion, someone noted that 120 years ago, the U.S. boasted about 2,000 brewers, individual entrepreneurs brewing beer for local markets. Just like, ya know, the much-touted 1,500 or so “local” brewers today.

Put another way: there’s not much new under the sun. I love what the craft brewers do. I admire and respect their passion and dedication. But they’re not unique. They’re not inventing the wheel. Which is why I said to Sam and Greg, check back with me in ten years: Because I doubt that they are so unique that they will buck the norms of human, and American, behavior. (*1)

Indeed, they might want to check with their colleagues the Widmer brothers. Back in the 1980s, Kurt Widmer and his brother, passionate brewers both, founded a microbrewery so they could make “real” beer. At the time, they criticized Jim Koch (maker of Sam Adams beer) for not being a “real” brewer and for daring to sell his beer on contract. (Contract brewers hire vat space from another brewery.)

Guess which beermaker, a few years later, shifted to contract brewing and then sold a significiant chunk of his business to a Big Brewer?

That’s not a criticism of the Widmer brothers, by the way. It’s an illustration of ways in which success, hardship, ambition, and so forth change the way people define their lives and their idea of what’s “good.”

__________

*1: But again, as I’ve asked before: Are we living in a new age? Perhaps there is something new under the sun? I dunno. Check back with me in, oh, fifty, sixty years. (Oh. Wait. It’s unlikely I’ll be alive then, sad to say.) (Unless of course this is a truly new age and we conquer the process of aging.)

Part One --- Part Two --- Part Three --- Part Four --- Part Five 

Let’s start with the notion that craft brewers are entrepreneurs. They’ve created something from nothing, and they did so because they believe in their work and its value. Charlie Papazian has devoted his adult life to building an organization, and to spreading the gospel of good beer. Todd and Jason Alstrom started with an idea — a website devoted to beer — and they’ve worked their butts off to build that idea into a viable business. Ditto Sam, Greg, and Rhonda. Every single day they’re putting themselves and their families on the line because they want to pursue their passion.

But it’s not clear to me how or why that makes any of them different from any other entrpreneur — or artist or artisan — or, for that matter, any different than someone who works for a for-profit or non-profit company in which they believe.

I say that as an entrepreneur. I’m a self-employed, one-woman operation. Like Sam, Greg, Todd, and Rhonda, I’m out there every day trying to persuade people to consume what I have to offer. (In my case, words rather than beer.) Like them, everyday, I work to create something from nothing, the “something” in my case being, again, a book.

And because I am an entrepreneur, I understand that the world is full of other human beings with goals. Do I agree with all of them? No. Nor do I think some entrepreneurs are more “pure” and “real” than others. That’s not a criticism of the others on the panel. I respect and admire them for their work and their passion. But I don’t think they’re any different from other passionate pursuers of dreams.

But the larger point is this. As a historian, I’ve spent years studying patterns of human behavior from a historical perspective, and here’s one thing I know about humans, success, and money: The more they make, the more they want. Entrepreneurs seek constant challenge, success piled on success.

Think Donald Trump or Bill Gates: They never stopped wanting more. (Gates has stepped down from Microsoft, but only because he’d decided to pursue a new and different set of challenges.)

Yes, I know what you’re thinking: Donald Trump and Bill Gates are nothing like the Sam and Greg. Sam and Greg are good guys. Trump and Gates are Corporate Fat Cats.

Maybe, maybe not. They are all, however, ambitious, smart, talented, hard-driving people who enjoy a challenge and who want more. And historically, human beings who fit that description have demonstrated that they’ll never be satisfied. That’s the nature of the beast. That’s not a value judgment: Donald Trump isn’t a bad guy. Greg Koch isn’t a bad guy. They’re simply motivated, driven, ambitious creatures.

Think about it: During the film, both Greg and Sam talked at length about their plans for expansion: bigger vats, larger bottling lines. Both are constantly expanding their distribution territories. Put bluntly: they’re constantly on the prowl looking for their Next Move, which is always to the larger end of the spectrum. We didn’t see or hear them talking about downsizing. We saw and heard them talking about growing bigger.

In short, they’re behaving in a completely human way, which is to strive, strive, and strive some more. That’s why I said to them “Check back with me in ten years.” I meant “Let’s see in ten years how you feel about “success” and about your desire to satisfy your creative ambitions.”

Next: Historical perspective on “individualism,” and consumer choice

Part One --- Part Two --- Part Three --- Part Four --- Part Five 

Then Ben asked the craft contingent what makes craft beer and craft brewing so special. They responded that craft brewers are special/unique because they care about their product, they have passion for their work, they’re pursuing the American dream, they making an “authentic” product, ie “real” beer. Or, as Charlie put it, for the craft brewers, the beer comes first. For the “big brewers,” image and marketing matter more than the beer.

Sam and Greg insisted that, for them, the beer would always come first. They also argued that in recent years Americans have begun demanding products that are “local” and “authentic”; demanding products from “individuals” rather than “big corporations.” (And if it weren’t for those pesky big brewers, the small brewers would be more successful.) Finally, they said that making money isn’t their main goal; making a pure, authentic product is, and that it doesn’t matter to them if their companies grow any larger

Then Ben asked me: What’s wrong with big companies wanting to sell their product. Isn’t that what capitalism is all about? I replied by saying, in effect, nothing is wrong with it, and yes, That’s what capitalism is about.

Individuals like Sam, Greg, and Rhonda launch companies because they want to make a product they believe in; they want to make money so they can support their families; they want to be successful. They enjoy and thrive on the challenge. And yes, they have to believe in what they do, because entrepreneurship is not for the faint of heart. Some entrepreneurs (in this case brewers) become successful.

Anheuser-Busch, for example, started out as a tiny brewing company (as did Sam’s and Greg’s). Its owners succeeded, and did so, I would argue, because they met a tough challenge and worked their asses off to make their companies grow.

And then I said something like Greg and Sam should check back with me in ten years to see how their plan to remain small, pure, and real was working out. Which, I gather, made them and others unhappy. They think that I don’t “understand” what they’re trying to do; that I don’t understand their passion.

Next: Entrepreneurship, historical perspective, and other matters

Part One --- Part Two --- Part Three --- Part Four --- Part Five 

Anyway, neither the film nor the panel discussion are available online, so I can’t direct you to then. So what follows is a (brief) summary of the film’s point and of the panel discussion. And of course I’m giving you MY interpretation of what I saw/heard that night.

The film’s creator, Anat Baron, argued that “big brewers” like Anheuser-Busch InBev have too much control over which beers are sold in stores. This is partly because they’re big corporations with lots of money. But it’s also because of their relationship to the equally powerful beer distributors, who are the middlemen in the three-tier system (the three tiers being brewers, distributors, retailers).

The three-tier system, which was established by state and federal laws, forces forces brewers to rely on distributors who sell the beer to the retailers who then sell it to consumers. Between them, the “big” brewers and the distributors determine which beers end up in grocery stores. They control access and leave no room for beers from small craft brewers.

(Literally no room: Anat showed scenes from grocery stores so that we could see how big beers hog most of the available shelf space.)

She also argued that big brewers spend millions on advertising, and that this advertising is so efficient and intense that most consumers never get a chance to find out about other beer options.

Next: The beer people’s argument about their industry

Part One --- Part Two --- Part Three --- Part Four --- Part Five 

Our advance instructions were clear (and I’m happy to say we all followed orders):The panel would open with each panelist responding to a film clip. We did not see the clips in advance, so we didn’t know what we would be responding to. Each person would respond in order, and none of us were to interrupt that person while he/she was speaking. 

Once we’d all spoken, Ben launched another series of questions of his choosing, directed at a panelist of his choosing. No surprise, Sam and Rhonda, as the film’s “stars,” received most of the questions, with Greg getting a chunk of them. (Again, we were not told in advance what questions would be asked.)

The half hour zoomed past at Autobahn speed. Indeed, the one thing we all agreed on as we left the stage after the event ended was that we would have loved another hour, because there was plenty to say.

Okay. So that’s what happened. (And yeah, I should have included this last bit of whys/wherefores in the previous post. What can I say?)

My response?

First the film. The film was terrific. It moved at a lively pace, nearly dizzying at moments, and it had a clear narrative structure: Anat leaves alcohol business, ponders nature of alcohol business, decides to follow two beermakers, two entrepreneurs whose stories have quite different endings. It was often hilarious and almost as often sobering. (How could anyone watch Rhonda hauling her case from bar to bar, from meeting to meeting, night after night, day after day, and not be moved by her spirit and energy?)

Was the film perfect? No. Had it been my film (and I’m definitely not cut out for film-making), I would have introduced Rhonda, Sam, and the three-tier system earlier in the proceedings. I also would have painted the conflict with more shades of grey: I don’t think the conflict is so much Big Guy v. Little Guy v. Middleman Monsters, so much as it is a conflict about broader and deeper American values. (That, by the way, is where I’m headed with all of this, so hang on a minute for that.)

More to the point, it wasn’t my film. It was Anat’s film and her perspective and she went through all this effort because she wanted to make a point of her choosing, not mine. And judged on that basis, in terms of both its technical qualities and its narrative, I thought the film was excellent: Lively, well-paced, well-directed, and thoughtful. The cinematography and editing were first-rate and as a director, Anat possesses an exquisite sense of timing. Her wit and humanity shone in equal measures. 

Someone said to me at the reception after that he didn’t even want to get up to use the john because he was afraid he’d miss something. That means the film succeeded. I was deliriously happy on Anat’s behalf. 

So I urge the beer geeks to separate the film’s topic from the film itself. Pretend it was a film about, I dunno, brain surgery or tree trimming or mountain biking.

In other words, take your off beer blinders and judge the film as a film.

Part One --- Part Two --- Part Three --- Part Four --- Part Five 

The point is that I knew that the critics would start in even before they’d seen the film. It’s all part of the deal. Fortunately, Anat also knew that would happen, and all she or anyone else could do was try to, well, educate people about how and why filmmakers and writers (and even brewers) make the choices they make. 

So on April 16, Anat and I and others gathered in Los Angeles for the event. I should explain that up to that point, no one had seen the film except Anat, her crew, and Ben Stein. (She hired Ben as moderator because she needed someone who was experienced at public speaking and who was not involved in any way in the beer industry. Ben fit the bill.)

Digression: Anat  hired Ben as moderator because he’s an experienced speaker and, more important, an outsider. He doesn’t make beer, sell beer, or promote beer. No surprise, the crowd of critics were annoyed. How, they demanded to know, could he serve as a moderator when he’s not a beer person? And what about his politics?, of which, apparently, many beer geeks disapprove.

They seemed not to understand his role in this event: He was there to MODERATE. Got that? MODERATE. He wasn’t there to share his brewing expertise (there were four other people on stage to do that). He wasn’t there because he was knowledgeable about the industry. He wasn’t there because he holds a specific political point of view (which, I might point out, was and is irrelevant to the proceedings.) He was there to ask questions and keep the half hour panel on track. End of story.

End of digression. The panelists — myself, Rhonda Kallman, Sam Caligione, Todd Alstrom, Greg Koch, and Charlie Papazian — spent that afternoon in the “green room” waiting our turn for makeup and talking. Those who had cell phones tweeted and blogged the green room activity. Etc.

It’s worth noting that I’d never met Rhonda or Sam or Todd. I’d had one brief conversation with Greg a few months earlier at the Great American Beer Festival, and have known Charlie for about four years (I interviewed him for the book). It was an interesting experience to be, in effect, stranded in the Green Room with what amounted to total strangers, all of whom have what can only be described as oversized personalities. Toss Anat and Ben into the mix and it made for an amazing and memorable afternoon.

(If I were Jane Smiley, I would have been taking notes for a novel titled Five Hours in the Green Room, a riff on her Ten Days in the Hills, which I loved.) (But I’m definitely not a novelist, so that’s one book that’s not gonna get written, at least not by me.)

Another (brief) digression: Makeup. I hate wearing makeup. I own almost no makeup (I keep a bit on hand for the TV gig I do, just in case the studio’s makeup person isn’t there.) But high-def cameras can make a 20-year-old with fabulous skin look like an aged crone. So: makeup. I asked the person doing my makeup (which, no surprise, took a looooooong time; I’m old) if men got as much makeup as women. “Oh, no,” she said. “Men usually only need a light touch. But people expect women to wear makeup, so we always put more on them.”

Oh?

About an hour before the film was to begin, we all trouped onstage for a run-through of the live event. The crew wired us, checked sound levels, checked camera angles, and so forth. Ben ran us through a series of questions (none of which he re-asked during the live event.) We all argued; a minor shouting match ensued (because many of us disagreed about a number of topics). (Not to worry; it was a friendly shouting match.)

(The crew, by the way, consisted of dozens of people. You want to know why tickets cost $15? Staging an event like this requires a HUGE amount of equipment and a lot of highly skilled theater tech people. The satellite trucks were marvels of mobile high-technity, and there were miles of cables, wires, and so forth all over, all of which required a human being to set up and operate.)

Then we went backstage again to wait for the screening to begin. When it was time, we — the panelists, Anat, and Ben — took our seats in the auditorium so we could watch the film. (Again, note that only Anat and Ben had seen the film. The rest of us were “Beer Wars” virgins.)

The lights dimmed. The screen lit up. The film rolled. We watched. Five minutes before the film ended, we crept from our theater seats, returned to the stage (which was concealed by the movie screen), took our assigned seats for the panel discussion, got re-wired, received still more makeup (ugh). The film ended, the screen rose, and the panel discussion began.

Next: You want depth? You're not gonna get it in a half hour.

Part One --- Part Two --- Part Three --- Part Four --- Part Five 

I was not surprised by this pre-screening reaction. If I’ve learned anything in three years since my beer book came out, it’s that the world of craft brewing is highly insular and short-sighted. Its inhabitants believe that the world revolves around beer in general and craft beer in particular. 

They are so blinded by their insularity that they don’t know that roughly 96% of the beer sold in the U.S. is NOT craft beer. They don’t understand that the rest of the world doesn’t drink craft beer; doesn’t idolize Greg Koch and Sam Caligione. That the rest of the world doesn’t know or care about brewers’ conflicts, the three-tier system, or anything else connected to beer and brewing.

That’s not a criticism. Insularity and short-sightedness enable “groups” to create and maintain solidarity. (People who work in publishing are even worse, frankly, which is why I avoid hanging around with writers, agents, and editors.)

But there’s another reason I was not surprised by the pre-screening dogpile: Criticism is easy. Empathy is not. 

Most people aren’t writers and filmmakers (or entrepreneurs) and they don’t know how hard it is to write a book, or produce a film, or, for that matter, build a brewery. These are activities that require long hours, sacrifice, self-discipline. And in the end, if the writer or filmmaker -- or brewer -- has done her job right, the finished product looks easy. Like something any fool could do.

Case in point: Some months back, a couple of beer enthusiasts asked me for an interview. They run a website and forum and do podcasts about beer. One of them said he liked the book and then said something like: “Well, it was probably pretty easy, wasn’t it? I mean, the story was right there. All you had to do was write down the facts.” Or words to that effect.

Well, no. That’s not quite what happened. The “facts” were scattered hither and yon, buried in hundred year old books and in magazines and interviews and so forth. I spent five years tracking down those facts and then piecing them together into a coherent “story” that I hoped others would enjoy. But I knew that he didn’t know that. Indeed, the fact that he assumed it was “easy” meant I’d been at least a little bit successful: My hard work is invisible, which allows the main event --- the book’s narrative --- to take center stage.

So I understand how hard it is to create something from nothing --- and I know that people who don’t do what I do don’t understand how I do what I do. Again, not a criticism; just a fact. I have no idea how to run a brewery, perform brain surgery, or repair automobiles. (So I try to show respect for those who do.) 

But I also know that because people don’t know how I do what I do (or how Anat does what she does), the critics always want something other than what they got. 

For example: Many people criticize me for not including the colonial period in my book, or for not writing a book that was only about the craft brewing industry. That’s okay. They’re entitled to their opinion, just as I’m entitled to mine. And in my informed opinion, I had good reason to write the book the way I wrote it, not least of which was that, ya know, I wrote the book I wanted to write, not the book that someone else wanted me to write. 

(So to those critics I always say --- politely --- “Those sound like a great topic. I look forward to reading your take on it. Let me know when you’ve finished  your book.”)

(I’m still waiting for those books to appear. . . . )

Next: Showtime!

Part One --- Part Two --- Part Three --- Part Four --- Part Five 

The film would be followed by a half-hour live discussion by some of the people in the film. She asked me to participate in that discussion because I’m a historian, not a beer person, and therefore I’d add an outsider’s perspective.

Anat’s production company, her publicity firm, and Fathom began promoting the film: They used a website, Anat tweeted, publicists sent out press releases, etc.

The blogosphere chatter began. And sailed along a predictable trajectory: the “beer geeks” pissed and moaned about how this film was no good, the idea was old, there is no “beer war.” 

“Rhonda Kallman is in the film? Why? She’s not a craft brewer!”

The pre-release chatter consisted of mindless knee-jerking on the part of people who claim they want “craft beer” to be noticed, loved, and consumed, but who are, at the same time, irrationally dedicated to denouncing anything and everything that does not fit their vision of what craft beer is and how it ought to be portrayed (and revered and adored.)

They complained about the price of admission, about the fact that it was one night only, about the fact that only 400-s0me theaters would be airing the film. (The event was broadcast via satellite; not every theater is equipped with satellite streaming equipment; therefore not every theater could show the film.)

Even the fact that Anat was promoting the film pissed people off: They complained about the overdose of press releases, emails, etc. They seemed not to realize that the “beer world” was not Anat’s only target. She wanted anyone and everyone to see the film. So of course she launched a PR blitz: she’s trying to fill seats in a theater.

But beer folks see the world through their prism and they didn’t understand that this was a film first, and only a beer film secondarily. Anat didn’t make the film for the beer world. She made the film because she was trying to explore and make sense of the logic of capitalism. Beer simply provided a lens through which to examine the topic. (I understood that intuitively: My book about beer was a work of  history that explored one aspect of American society. I used beer as the vehicle for that exploration.)

Next: The nature of “group think” and the creative process.

Part One --- Part Two --- Part Three --- Part Four --- Part Five 

So. You guessed it: Another! Multi-part! Series!

First some background to the saga, which unfolded over the course of several years: My beer book came out in September 2006, about a week prior to the Great American Beer Festival, and so I headed to the festival to sign copies of the book. While I was there, a refreshingly sober, decidedly chic woman -- Anat Baron -- introduced herself. She explained that she was making a film about the brewing industry. (At that point, she’d been working on the project for about a year.) 

By coincidence, I was scheduled to be in St. Louis in November for a book signing on the same day that she planned to be in that city to do some filming. So we met up in St. Louis and she interviewed (filmed) me for about two hours, asking questions about brewing history, etc. (Because I’d been involved in several documentaries, I know that an hour of filming equals about a minute of “air time,” so I knew that my part in the final product would be small.)

Over the next several years, we stayed in touch by email and compared notes as we both wrestled with our respective projects -- her film and my new book, a history of meat in America. Because we communicated so often, I quickly realized that writing a book and making a film are nearly identical processes. We both had to find our “story,” identify our “characters” (which, in both our cases, were real people), construct a narrative arc based on the characters’ stories; do lots of research; collect and sift through mountains of raw material; write, edit. Edit again; and then edit some more.

I also got to know Anat. She’s extremely intelligent, blunt, intelligent, determined, self-confident, self-assured, talented, intelligent. Did I mention that she’s intelligent? And talented? And self-confident? Perhaps fearless is a better word.