Sometime last summer, I got an e-mail from this guy Kevin. I didn’t know who he was. He was a fan of North Carolina beer and had an eye on this website called Know Your Brewer. It was a site that I had run across before – it was something that had been put together at the tail end of Pop the Cap by Sean Wilson – the guy who put PtC together – as a site to highlight North Carolina beer. Kevin had noticed that there wasn’t much movement on the site and had a few ideas about how to get things rolling again. I’ve never been quite sure about why he decided to include me on the e-mail (among a few others who I DO understand, because they’ve been involved in the beer scene – @Geistbear and another local beer guy – who ended up being too busy to be involved at the time). It turned out to be me, Sean, and Kevin sitting at a bar sort of brainstorming ideas of how to highlight NC breweries.

A few weeks later, the North Carolina Brewers Guild spoke up. They were interested in pulling the content that Sean had originally put into Know Your Brewer into their domain, NCBeer.org. They needed someone to manage the creation of content and help move the site forward. Sean was busy (and still is) with the launch of his own brewery, so he sent a message out asking if anybody was interested in stepping up. I jumped at it, and have been working for the Brewers Guild managing their website, its content, and whatever else they need – alongside Rob Ulick who has been in-freakin’-valuable and fantastic – ever since.

In the meantime, Know Your Brewer went a little vacant. A lot of the content that had originally been created got moved over to ncbeer.org. A lot of the traffic moved, as well. But I had an idea sort of banging around in the back of my head and I pitched it to Sean.

This Know Your Brewer idea was a good one. I had really enjoyed reading the interviews on the site, and I was a little sad to see it die. What if, I asked, we took the time to move this nationwide? Wouldn’t it be cool if we could celebrate breweries everywhere? One of the things that had struck me ever since I started getting into the craft beer industry is just how nice the people are. It might be the friendliest industry I’ve ever had the pleasure to be a part of. There’s camaraderie in the place of competition. What’s more, like any small business, the people involved are very much the epitome of their own brand.

Every brewery has its own story that each day and each beer become sentences, paragraphs, and chapters of. The people that work there are characters in their own storyline. Customers – beer geeks – tend to get wrapped up in the story of the brewery and in most cases (high profile breweries aside) don’t get the chance chance to know anything about the greatest protagonist: the brewer. That, I said to Sean, is what I’d like to see. We’re such a young industry, we’ve got so many good people with so many good stories – someone should be telling them.

For whatever foolhardy reason, Sean agreed; we’ve been moving forward ever since. He’s been an idea machine and – let’s face it, it was his site. That he was gracious enough to allow me to descend on it with my idea was wonderful. That he jumped in feet-first with brainstorming and hard work whilst in the midst of starting a business is beyond awesome.

It’s been a little rough to get moving at times. Neither of us really have the time to dive into another project that we’re not getting paid for. The site needed a pretty hefty redesign and, most importantly, it needed content. I started contacting breweries in every place that I was traveling in the winter and coming up in the spring and trying to arrange interviews. We asked a friend of mine that I met through Intrepid Media, Russ Carr to give us a hand with the design and then we set out to recruit writers. Kevin Myers, the guy who sent me the e-mail to start this insane chain into action, was one of the first people to sign up. His interview with Josh Brewer of Mother Earth Brewing will start off our second week. The reason that Know Your Brewer looks as snazzy as it does is due 110% to the hard work that Russ put in. I owe Russ lots and lots of beer.

The reason that we have good content queued up is because we’ve had some really great writers step up and volunteer to throw some stuff our way. Nobody’s getting paid to do any of this. We’re all working through this as a labor of love to tell the stories of some pretty admirable men and women.

Take the time to head over to Know Your Brewer and read a little bit about Brian Connery, Senior Brewer at Dogfish Head – a really nice guy who took time out of his schedule two days after Christmas, to get interviewed by me at the end of his work day. He’s dealt with me badgering him over the past few months, promising that this content was going to go up sometime and, oh by the way, would you mind answering this other thing, too?

I hope you enjoy reading about his background and about why he loves his job so much. Later on the week, you can read a great recipe that he made up using two Dogfish Head beers that I’ll actually be cooking up in my kitchen this evening.

I hope, too, that I can get back to writing here on a more regular basis. Know Your Brewer has been taking up so much of my attention lately that Top Fermented has only gotten a few rants from me. Look for more in the upcoming weeks – when I’m not typing out my interviews for KYB.

And finally, I hope you’re moved to take the time, go talk to a brewer, and write it up to submit it to Know Your Brewer. We will always be in want of more content, but with 1500 breweries in the U.S. and more opening every day, there’s no reason that we shouldn’t be swamped with it. If you’re interested in contributing, send a message over to info@knowyourbrewer.com and we can get you hooked up.

Enjoy.

I sat down to watch Beer Wars last night. It’s interesting doing this now, almost a year after it’s been released, seeing the original reviews, the reactions, and seeing what’s happened over the past year. As a note, one of the first columns that I wrote on this blog was about Beer Wars – actually about the hype surrounding it which, at the time, was kind of rubbing me the wrong way. Looking back, I’ll admit that one of the reasons that the hype was bothering me was because I wasn’t able to actually go participate in the one day release. I’m now glad that I didn’t, because I’m sure that had I viewed it then, I would have seen it entirely differently.

Yesterday, due to a new distribution contract with Warner Bros., Beer Wars hit streaming Netflix and I was finally able to get a look at it, albeit a year removed.

Allow me to start here: I enjoyed it.

In fact, I enjoyed it a lot more than I originally thought I was going to. The first 10-or-so minutes of it, in particular, I thought were playful, fun, and educational and really showed the ridiculous scale of the beer industry quite well. Jim Koch’s regular statement of, “Bud spills more beer in a single day than I make in an entire year” (featured in the film) is very apparent here and that message alone is worth watching the movie for. I wish the entire film had carried the tone of the first ten minutes, even so much as to carry the cartoon Anat Baron all the way through.

From a “I’m critiquing this movie” standpoint, I think Beer Wars suffered a little from not really knowing what it was. It wanted to educate, and then it wanted to criticize. At times it was a little unfair in its criticism, sometimes ignoring reality in favor of a flashy point and in general I’m okay with that if that’s your modus operandum – but it clashed with the educational and feel-good parts of the film. I found myself thinking that if Beer Wars had merely presented the facts of the scale of the industry alongside the wonderful story of how craft beer has evolved, without trying to be edgy and in-your-face and make points against BMC (and especially Anheuser-Busch), that it would have carried its point much more effectively. In the end, it felt like an Anheuser-Busch critique vehicle wrapped around a warm and fuzzy story about Sam Calagione with a little bit of feeling embarrassed for Rhonda Kallman on the side.

Like I say – I enjoyed it and I would recommend this movie to others. I wonder at how it would play to people who are not beer geeks. I will probably never know. I’m not sure I know non-beer-geeks that I haven’t at least somewhat indoctrinated, anyway.

I cannot say enough about Sam Calagione in this film. He makes the movie and without him it would not have been nearly as compelling. Nevermind that he’s the GQ posterchild of craft beer, the guy is so damn charismatic and.. and.. likable that it’s impossible not to root for him. When he’s sitting there with his kids climbing all over his shoulders with that goofy grin of his, it puts the, “Yeah, so I had to put my family into a crippling amount of debt to try to chase this dream” into harsh relief and you want nothing more than for him to succeed. He was the perfect centerpiece for this movie.

I wish there was more Dick Yuengling in it. He just makes me smile. Go get ‘em Dick!

I cannot, however, figure out the choice of Rhonda Kallman and Moonshot here. It looks, in the movie, like a failing brand from the get-go. The problem is that the film doesn’t convince me that the reason that she’s failing is because she’s getting roughed up by A-B. It sounds like a gimmicky product, she even sells it like a gimmicky product in the parts of the movie where she’s looking for investments ($6 mil! Holy moly. I’ll take the $800,000, please.). I don’t know. Maybe my opinion is colored by the fact that I know that New Century, who makes Moonshot, also makes Edison Light which is my second least favorite beer in the entire world (behind Leinenkugel Sunset Wheat which, I swear, tastes exactly like circus peanuts). Sorry Rhonda, I’m just not a fan. I’d feel more empathy if I thought it was a great beer.

The one moment where I really wanted to back Rhonda up was a scene in a bar, where some jackass patron who is trying the free beer she’s given him asks her, “Does your husband know you’re out here doing this?” right before another one asks, “Will this cure whiskey tits?” I never felt as bad for her as when she laughed along with them like it was all some sort of joke when by all rights those guys needed a good solid cock punch.

“Does your husband know you’re out here doing this?” Really? You sexist assbag!

Anyway – without getting lost in these details, I went into watching this with a couple of questions in my mind:

1) In retrospect, did the movie live up to the enormous amount of hype that was generated?

I think that the enormous amount of hype actually hurt this movie. It had such an onslaught of publicity that I think it needed to be Gone with the Wind to live up to the expectations of critics within the beer industry, much less traditional media. With all of the buzz, it needed to absolutely blow your mind to be treated with anything except let-down afterward. It’s really a shame. There’s a good story here and there are good messages, but because it wasn’t Citizen Kane it didn’t get the attention it deserved after release.

On the other hand, because Ms. Baron was working on getting this out without a distribution deal, because it was being released in the one-time-special-event manner that it was, I’m not sure I can come up with a better way to have marketed it. You had one shot, you had to make sure people were there or it was going to be an enormous financial loss. That’s rough.

With any luck, Warner Bros. will be able to help market it outside of the craft beer community which, frankly, is not the audience that needs to see this movie – it’s preaching to the converted.

2) Why was the BA so eager to support prior to screening it, and what, if anything, did they gain by it?

At the time of the Beer Wars release I kept asking myself: Why are so many prominent members of the BA wrapping themselves up in the promotion of this movie when, by their own admission, they have not screened it?

Watching it, it hit me: If I was filmed for a movie, and I knew that I was going to be on the big screen, I sure as hell would promo the shit out of it, too! In the grand scheme of things, they knew that the movie was going to be complimentary to their cause and their industry because they had spoken about the point of the film with Ms. Baron. At that point pushing this movie was a no-brainer; it was good publicity for yourself, your company, and the industry as a whole, regardless of whether or not the movie was brilliant.

I was surprised to find out that there were only small clips of Charlie Papazian, Greg Koch, Maureen Ogle and the Alström Brothers in this, though, considering how prominently they all featured in the promotion (and live discussion on release night). Good personalities! I’m glad they were used in the live discussion; it led me to believe that I would see more of them in the film than I did. I wish that a recording of the live discussion would have been available via Netflix.

So, what, if anything, did the BA gain? Awareness. But I think that’s it – not that that’s small. However, I feel that Beer Wars drew a harsh picture of the three-tier system and distribution that I’m not sure is necessarily in the best interest of the BA. The three-tier system and wide distribution networks have a lot to do with the fact that I’m currently able to drink Stone Arrogant Bastard and New Belgium Fat Tire here in North Carolina. Both Greg Koch (Stone) and Kim Jordan (New Belgium) were briefly featured in the film and I’m sure that they would both tell you that without distribution agreements that would not be possible.

She took a (warranted) passing shot at the tactics and bullshittery used by some distributors, but rather than doing an expose on slimy (and illegal) business practices, we got a short montage of Ms. Baron hunting for purportedly mythical Neo-Prohibitionists which, I might argue, are actually a real threat to the industry.

Overall, however, I think the BA – and the craft beer industry in general – receives a net gain here, even if just off of the first 10 minutes of the film, and the crazy freakin’ title that shows up on top of the Dogfish Head introduction segment: “Dogfish Head: 0.0002% Market Share.” I may have missed a 0 there. Regardless, it was REALLY effective.

3) What’s the best way to follow this up?

Yes, I’d like to see more. Maybe Beer Skirmishes. I’m just not a huge fan of war.

I think that, in actuality, there were 2 or 3 documentaries all smushed into one here and that either through lack of focus or lack of funding we got this movie. Here’s what I think we potentially have inside Beer Wars:

- The story of the craft beer industry, its inception and growth and a straightforward honest comparison between craft beer and BMC. ie – show off the little guys, and show just how little they are and what a disadvantage they are at without having to trash BMC. You catch more flies with honey than vinegar and all that. I suspect we’ll get a lot of this from the upcoming Beer Pioneers.

- An expose of the tactics of the less scrupulous members of the distribution industry in comparison with the distributors who are now focusing on craft and trying to play by the rules.

- A politico documentary of BMC lobbying vs. Beer Institute lobbying vs. BA lobbying. None of it’s pretty (lobbying just isn’t), but it would be fascinating to see where they differ and where they all overlap (and I’m sure they do).

Any single one of those could be a compelling documentary and some of them, if done correctly, could actually be a driving force for change in the industry. I hope that Ms. Baron will find success through her Warner Bros. distribution contract and will come away with the funding to pursue one of these topics in depth.

In verbose conclusion I say: Go forth and watch this movie. Most especially, make sure that those you know that aren’t huge beer geeks watch this movie and be ready to go to the bar and talk it over with them over a pint of good, locally made, craft beer.

Back – way, way back in internet years – just after last year’s Craft Brewer’s Conference, I wrote a little piece about why and how breweries should be using Twitter. It was originally a bit of a followup from watching the internet panel at the CBC. I wasn’t confident that the panel really convinced people why they should be using social media. In fact, I’m not even sure if left people with a favorable impression. So passionate was I about this, that I got together with a couple of great people to put a panel together for this year’s conference.

I’ve been planning on writing a few columns in support of the panel this spring as I work through collecting my thoughts for later discussion. The first was going to be what I perceive as the effective differences between Facebook and Twitter, built for a craft beer business perspective. That’s still coming, but via the magic of the internet, I was pointed over to a thread on ProBrewer that kind of got me by the short hairs.

Let me see if I can summarize this thread for you:

“What’s this Twitting thing? Is that on the Google? I can’t understand what those kids are saying without my ear horn!”

It makes me want to slap people. There is nothing in this world that pisses me off more than willful ignorance. The idea that you can’t understand something because it’s new is a one-way ticket to stagnation and failure. In the end the real issue is that you’re scared. Grow a pair. It’s a plastic box with electronics in it. We call it a computer. You use several every day, probably even to make beer.

I’m sure that all of the guys that posted to this thread are smart. You have to be smart to brew beer and run a business. You have to know a good deal of chemistry, physics, and biology. You have to have business sense and be at least relatively decent with numbers, you have to be savvy enough with people to know your customers, know what they want, and know how to get them to buy your product. And then you put something out like “I could really give a s#$t if those who read our company tweets consume my beer. If they would take guidance from a simple message from a stranger, they’re idiots.”

Shit, man. You just described marketing. You ever watch a commercial? They’re on the television now. Oh, right- that’s another plastic box with electronics in it. Forget I asked.

Nevermind, the lovely irony of asking “Has everyone willingly given up privacy?” on a public message board using your real name as a username. Liam, buddy: Misdirected ire. You must have been having a bad day that day, eh? I hope I can get up to Yellow Belly the next time I’m in NL to try your beer, regardless of that fact that you’ve completely written me off as a customer. Hey – does that mean I can drink for free?

And I don’t really mean to take the piss out of Liam here, it’s just to easy to troll and be snarky when people give you such opportunities! Moving on:

Allow me to address a few of the points that I’m going to summarize out of this thread (and countless freakin’ others out there):

Social Media is for “young people”

Almost 40% of Facebook users are between ages 36 and 65.

60% of Facebook users are over the age of 25.

Those damn kids. They’re probably planning your 30th high school reunion using the Facebook. Maybe you should get in touch.

Social media is a fad.

Facebook reported hitting 132 million users in December 2009. MySpace reports almost 50 million. Twitter reports 23 million. They’re not all overlapping users, though many are (there’s the followup column I’m writing, see?).

Allow me to translate that into math:

If every drinking-aged adult in the country (~200 million) buys beer (they don’t), and craft beer makes up ~5% of the market share (they do), then more people over the age of 26 use Facebook (79.2 million) than drink craft beer (10 million) by a factor of a whole shitload. Fad. Sheesh.

I don’t have time for social media

I don’t have time to promote my business! I don’t have time to get people interested in my brand! I don’t have time to sell my product! I don’t have time to interact with my customers! Waaah!

Really? You know how long it takes me to send out a tweet? Like 25 seconds. To be fair: I type fast. Let’s say it takes you TWICE as long as me to type – no! Three times as long! Finger-pecker!

Ach! My aged fingers can not stand typing for over a minute! I can’t take 75 seconds out of my incredibly busy day to interact with my customers just once!

If you’re that busy, you’re probably at a point where you could consider hiring someone to help you. If you make the point of hiring somebody who’s not an anti-social curmudgeon, then chances are you could make managing social media part of their job and then you don’t have to worry about understanding anything fancy and new.

Look, there’s only one excuse for this type of response: You don’t get it. And you know what? That’s okay! It’s totally fine to not intuitively understand something the first time you look at it. To assume that it’s stupid because you don’t understand it is folly.

You don’t have to spend a lot of time on social media. Can you? Certainly! It can be borderline addictive. I’ll get into that in my next point.

It’s all anti-social crap for people with ADD!

You’re confusing social media with iPhone owners. (I kid! (Mostly!))

Social media is the opposite of anti-social. C’mon, people. “Social” is in the freakin’ name. Every interaction via any form of social media is essentially a part of a conversation. It’s not an update look-at-my-life-because-I’m-so-freakin’-awesome tool. It’s a human interaction please-talk-to-me tool. It’s not just:

“I had a Brooklyn Backbreaker at Tyler’s Taproom last week and I gotta say: pretty awesome.”

It’s also:

“Oooh, I’ve been wanting to try that one. Is it still on tap?”

People are talking about you. They’re talking about your product and they’re talking about your brewery. They’re talking about them a lot and having meaningful conversations about them. That is exactly why social media can be so addictive – interacting with people is fun. You do it in the bar all the time, right? Oh, right – I know: Only with people you know, or people who have the same interests as you, or maybe just the pretty girls.

Yeah, okay. Just like social media. Look, you don’t have to interact with anybody that you don’t want to. You choose who you follow and the people who follow you are enthusiastic fans of your business and your product. They are your good customers and your best evangelists. Not only do they want to have a conversation with you, they want to have a conversation about you to others. You can’t ask for better marketing than that – don’t you want to be a part of that conversation and have the chance to help guide it?

True story: I have met more new beer people in my area in the past year via Twitter, Facebook, and this blog than the previous 6 years I’ve been living here. And I’m talking great people – awesome people that I like to go hang out with after work and have a beer with, people that I have invited over to my house for dinner and drinks, and people that I hope I will not ever lose touch with because they’re such good people. Wow! Being anti-social is fun!

Social media is not a replacement for human interaction – it’s an augmentation.

It’s not a press release machine – it’s a customer interaction tool.

It’s an easy and effective tool that you can use to share your brand and your story with an eager-and-waiting audience and probably have a lot of fun at the same time. Use it. There is no downside and no reason not to.

This post was originally going to be for this month’s Session, #35: “New Beer’s Resolutions, but I canned it. It’s a cute topic, but I can’t do it. I don’t believe in looking back at mistakes. To learn from your mistakes is paramount, to dwell on them is folly. They are done and I won’t revisit them, but rather stay positive with their lessons in mind and move forward to greater achievement.

At the same time, I feel like resolutions are bunk. The number one way to not get something done is to make it a New Year’s Resolution. If you want something to get done, you need to roll out of bed in the morning and do it. Screw tying it to the calendar. Just get up and go.

I also won’t attempt to make any predictions about what could happen in 2010. The problem with predictions is that they are based on the past; they’re based on our current knowledge set and our current environment. We cannot forsee individual random events or, even more importantly, what will be invented that will change the world in the next 12 months. It’s impossible and fruitless to speculate. You can only be ready for anything and enjoy the ever-living-crap out of it.

But! The dawn of a new year is an opportunity to look forward to all of the wonderful things to come that you DO know about. Here’s my personal list of things to come in 2010:

Homebrew and Competition

After withdrawing myself from homebrew competitions for a while, I plan to get my feet wet again to see what comes out of it. I’ve had some rather snarky judges in the past that have made me feel rather jaded about entering competitions, but in the spirit of “I’m going to start a business.” I’ve decided to say screw-all to the critics, throw my hat back into the ring, and wait for the Gold Medal to arrive in the mail. If the rest of my big bold headings work out as I expect them to, this will also be the last year I enter into homebrew competitions.

Here’s where my beer is going:

• 2010 Winter Brew Bash, Carrboro NC: Start local, right? These guys are working hard to have what appears to be a really incredibly non-traditional homebrew competition. What I like about it is that it is built around a homebrew tasting, so that brewers and the public alike can come in and try all of the beers that are entered into competition. It’s a lovely PR event for homebrew and has the possibility of getting a lot of new people involved in the hobby. At the same time, I love sharing my beer with other people and it’s a good opportunity for that, as well. Finally, as far as I can tell, it’s not tied to category, and thank god for that, because I don’t fit inside categories well.
• LoneRider Brewery’s Brew It Forward: Another style-less competition, where the prize involves getting your beer made and sold. I’m not sure when this is coming up – spring sometime – but they’re so close to my house that it seems ridiculous to not send them some beer.
• National Homebrew Competition: My opportunity to play to style and send something out, and maybe – just maybe – I’ll get a feedback sheet from a judge that doesn’t make me want to punch them in the throat.

2010 Craft Brewers Conference Panel Presentation: I’m a Social Media Guru Now!
One of the things that I am both looking forward to and slightly terrified of is the 2010 Craft Brewers Conference where I will be part of a panel presentation entitled Storytelling 2.0: Social Media as Conversation with some colleagues that I feel rather starstruck about. Fullsteam’s Sean Wilson (one of my co-panelists) posted a nice up front review of what we’re attempting to do. Here’s the selected excerpt from our draft pitch that sells it best:

It’s time to stop thinking of Twitter, Facebook, and blogging as simple extensions of your press releases. Storytelling 2.0 will help you discover your own unique voice, and connect, build, and bond with your fan base. It’s time to talk with — not at — your audience.

Craft brewing is story-driven. Each individual brewery has a unique story to best engage its customer base. Social media empowers your brewery to include enthusiasts in that story, giving them access to your narrative voice in an unparalleled way. Well-crafted updates, photo postings, and personalized responses engage your customers, giving them a chance to see inside your operations and meet the characters in the story first-hand.

By the by, I hope nobody ever calls me a social media guru. I don’t use it enough (I’m sure my wife would argue that I use it way too much) – on purpose – because I feel like it’s easy to spam and therefore achieve negative impact through annoyance, but I think that automatically takes me out of “guru” running.

As we work on the conference panel over the next few months, you’ll probably see a few columns here about social media and how it pertains to breweries. These columns will not be meant as part of the presentation or may not even be related, but it’s the best way I have to work through things. At the same time, I hope that my ramblings will be useful to the internet/brewing community at large.

Know Your Brewer Re-Launches

We haven’t said a whole lot about this yet, but I am working with Sean over at Fullsteam on a little project that I think will turn out for awesome. Know Your Brewer, a website that was originally focused on North Carolina Beer as part of Pop the Cap 2.0. The site provided the basic template and early content for the North Carolina Brewers Guild website NCBeer.org, which I’m also helping on, but that left a domain and a concept unoccupied. I’ve somehow managed to convince Sean to let me help retro-fit Know Your Brewer for a new life.

The re-launch is coming and it’s coming nationwide. I’m not yet sure of our official re-launch date, I can say that I think it will be pretty terrific. The site will focus on the men and women behind craft beer – the people that make it, the brewers – and look at their beer and their breweries through their eyes. We’re hoping to have writers and bloggers across the country interviewing brewers from across the country, with lots of added content – recipes, Q&A, etc, all in a regular weekly format.

I’ve already done interviews at a couple of breweries and I have a half-dozen more scheduled in the next few weeks. It’s been a ton of fun talking to brewers about their work, how they got into it, and what they enjoy the most about it. It’s been a ball and I can’t wait to share it.

What you see there isn’t the final design, but it’s on its way. Look for an official announcement here (and, of course, on Know Your Brewer) soon. In the meantime, we’re recruiting writers – are you interested? Let me know!

Announcing the Location of Mystery Brewing Company

Finally, in either the second or third quarter this year, I will be making the announcement on the geographical location of my own startup: Mystery Brewing Company.

At that point, the blog will likely go through a slight transition where you end up hearing a lot more commentary about startup issues. On of my major criticisms with startup brewery content I have found, read, and yes, even paid thousands of dollars for, is the lack of practical detail. I get a lot of “you need to fill out TTB forms and apply for licensing.” And while it’s true, it’s not necessarily as helpful as telling me what forms are around, what information they tend to expect, and what pitfalls I should look out for. Not to say I’ll be posting how to fill out your TTB label forms here, but I will, whenever possible, post practical information about the startup process specifically pertaining to startup breweries in the hopes that others coming after me will find something useful. I believe that the future of the industry lays in continuing spread of the individual small brewery, rather than the continual creation of more megabreweries, and I hope that I can help the industry in the right direction.

Back when I was in high school, as a miserable teenager, I remember somebody taking me aside and telling me: “Remember these days, because these are the best days of your life.” And then I remember thinking, “Oh god – kill me now.” They were wrong. Totally and completely and in all ways possible: wrong. They were not even remotely the best days of my life. Every year that I’ve been alive, things have just been better and better, more fun and more awesome, and I can’t imagine that changing now. I’m looking forward to 2010, for all of these reasons up here and the hundreds of reasons that I haven’t found out about, yet.

Happy New Year, everyone. It’ll be a great one.

In case you didn’t catch it on Friday afternoon and evening, a quick little meme started its way around the beer-related Twitterverse. It was an enormous amount of fun. Using the hashtag #beerfilms people were throwing beer terms into movie names. It was just a fantastic way to end a Friday afternoon at work, and I was happy to see that it lasted for the next 8 hours.

Lest all the creativity be lost to the ether (or Twitter’s magical, ‘older tweets are no longer available’), here are all the “beerfilms” and who came up with them, in order. I kept repeats in, though there aren’t that many of them. The most popular seemed to be “The Silence of the Lambics.”

What you see at the top of the list occured at about 4:15 – 4:30 PM, EST. The very bottom of the list was at 12:54 AM EST.

Got favorites? (Or more?) Post ‘em up in the comments! Enjoy:

• bganderson: Beer Time 2: The Electric Boogaloo
• nperkins: Homebrew Alone 2: Lost in New Wort
• bganderson: M. Night Shyamalan’s The Hoppening
• nperkins: The Golding’s Compass
• topfermented: Meet the Fuggles
• bganderson: Malt Disney’s Snow Weiss and the Seven Worts
• topfermented: V is for Vorlauf
• bganderson: My Krausen Vinny
• nperkins: Purple Reinheitsgebot
• nperkins: Triumph of Willamette
• BarlowBrewing: Men Who Stare at Bocks
• nperkins: Marzen Attacks!
• topfermented: 28 Days Lager
• bganderson: The Gueuze, the Bock, and the Barley
• nperkins: The Treasure of the Sierra Nevada
• nperkins: Paul Blart: Malt Cop
• bganderson: A Man for All Saisons
• topfermented: Helles Comes to Frogtown
• bierkunde: The Duvel Wears Prada
• bganderson: Silence of the Lambics
• nperkins: Barley and Me
• shieldsy: Beauty & the Yeast
• BarlowBrewing: Malty Python and the Holy Ale
• bganderson: Yeast of Eden
• topfermented: Sexy Yeast
• nperkins: Yeastmaster
• BarlowBrewing: Any Which Way But Gueuze
• timweber: A New Hop
• bierkunde: Tripel X
• bganderson: Erin Bockovich
• topfermented: Dubbel Dragon
• bganderson: Bitter Off Dead
• Jen_Lee: Revenge of the Pilsnerds
• bierkunde: School of Bock
• Geistbear: Gueuze with the Wind
• bierkunde: Gone with the Pint
• BarlowBrewing: Race to Wit Mountain
• topfermented: How the Grist Stole Christmas
• bganderson: Pixar Presents: Carboys
• Geistbear: From here to Final Gravity
• nperkins: The dark crystal 90
• bierkunde: Belle and the Yeast
• bganderson: M*A*S*H
• timweber: Torrified
• timweber: Drag Me to Helles
• nperkins: Bock to the Future
• BostonBeerBars: Harry Porter and the Half Pint Prince
• nperkins: Stein by me
• Geistbear: A Fermenter named Desire
• timweber: Cold Kriek Manor
• bganderson: Oktoberfest Sky
• BarlowBrewing: Hopback Mountain
• BarlowBrewing: The Lauterboy
• MrTrav: Harry Porter and the Aeration Stone
• THFbeer_nate: Bock Draught
• tcabeen: The Big LeBrewski
• THFbeer_nate: Marris otter and the 3 philosphers stone
• jeffbearer: Beer and Foaming in Las Vegas
• thorongil: Arrogant Bastards
• timweber: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Have a Homebrew
• jeffbearer: 1.120 a barleywine oddessy.
• jeffbearer: Hop Back Story
• THFbeer_nate: Center of Attenuation
• jeffbearer: Wort of the Worlds
• timweber: Cold Break
• laurenleschper: the bride of firkin-stein
• thorongil: Cold Crash
• topfermented: Smokey Beer and the Bandit
• BarlowBrewing: Last Tango in Maris
• topfermented: The Wizard of Saaz
• Jen_Lee: Mrs. Stoutfire
• hopwild: Full Metal Jacketed Conical
• hopwild: Mr. Smith Goes to Dogfish Head
• Jen_Lee: Hop Gun
• hopwild: There Will Be Trub
• TheChadd: Requiem for a Steam
• TheChadd: Debbie Does Dortmunder
• topfermented: Eight Men Stout
• kenoftheyear: The 25th Sour
• TheChadd: Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Hop Addition
• THFbeer_nate: Citizen Racking Cane
• TotalBev: Air Budweiser
• TheChadd: Fight Trub
• Cizauskas: The Good, The Bad, and the Fuggly
• Beer_Goddess: Top (Fermented) Gun
• jeffbearer: Kingfisher (bowling film), Slappack (hockey film), Hops Transducers (Robot Film), Freddy got Fermented, Hoppy Gilmore
• thorongil: http://twitpic.com/s5df7
• jabella72: Signin’ in the Grain
• TheHopry: Mikkeller Jackie Brown Bunny
• kenoftheyear: The Hopfather
• kenoftheyear: Home(brew) Alone
• jaelmchenry: Midnight in Hoegaarden of Good and Evil
• rnast: The Beer Hunter
• jeffbearer: Phenol Destination
• RayKrueger: The Brews Brothers
• dacort: Stoutless in Seattle
• kenoftheyear: Beavis and Butte-head Do America
• Geistbear: 12 Angry Hops
• jaelmchenry: Beyond Porters
• chriskrone: Beer And Present Danger
• dacort: Barley and the Yeast
• jabella72: Star Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Bock
• jabella72: The Silence of the Lambics
• TheChadd: The Abyss
• RayKrueger: The Hunt for Red Oktoberfest
• ndheisey: Monty Python: Search for the Holy Growler
• jaelmchenry: Confessions of a Hopaholic
• jeffbearer: No Country for Old Hops
• jaelmchenry: Milk Stout
• mortman: Hopsalong Cassidy
• jeffbearer: Brew Day Afternoon
• Beer_Goddess: Barley’s Angels
• esjaygee: The Danktank Redemption
• sigsegfalt: Harold and Maudite
• jabella72: There Will Be (Monk’s) Blood
• topfermented: 28 Days Lauter
• mortman: Yeast of Eden
• ShortyKorte: Jackie Brown Ale, Reservoir Drafts, Kill Brett Vol. 1 and 2, Four Kegs, Yeastproof, Inglourious Belgians
• jabella72: The Beer Hunter
• RayKrueger: The Last Boystout
• ShortyKorte: Malt Fiction
• jaelmchenry: Backdraught
• RayKrueger: Strange brew #actuallyabeerfilm
• rnast: The Optimator – I’ll be (Doppel)Bock!
• esjaygee: Erin Bockovich
• bganderson: The Keg and I
• jaelmchenry: The Story of Ommegang
• jabella72: Bock, Stock and Two Smoking Half-Barrels
• bganderson: All the Real Ales
• mortman: Growlers in the Mist
• beerinator: Stout Wars V: The Imperial Strikes Back
• mortman: The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lager
• Geistbear: Burp & Trub’s Excellent Adventure
• jaelmchenry: A Brew Good Men
• dacort: The Breakfast Stout Club
• jeffbearer: The Yeastbank Redemption
• ChipperDave: 007 ABV: The Man with the Golden Tun
• jaelmchenry: Allagash About Eve
• billjusino: The Maltose Falcon
• ndheisey: Zach and Miri Make A Pale Ale
• rnast: Breakfast Stout at Tiffany’s
• bganderson: Macaulay Culkin in: Humulone
• esjaygee: The Tyranena that binds
• jaelmchenry: Beverly Hills Hop
• TheChadd: 3 men and a carboy
• esjaygee: A Dogfish Called Wanda
• jeffbearer: To Fill a Mashing Tun
• timmay628: I Know What You Did Last Summer Wheat Ale
• jabella72: Snow White And The Seven Draughts
• anoopbhat: Superweiss Me
• jabella72: Tommy CarBoy
• lizziecrowe: Pony Up IPA
• GhostDog312: Brewmeister’s Millions
• esjaygee: The Scotty Karate kid
• mortman: silence of the lambics
• timmay628: Wort-ing Girl
• csjordan: Midnight in the Hoegaarden of Good and Evil
• GhostDog312: Silence of the Drams
• timmay628: Three Floyds and a Baby
• GhostDog312: The Shiner
• mfstromsk: Beer Runnings
• rnast: One Brew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
• TheBrewDude: Back to The Firkin
• Walshman23: Miller’s Crossing
• Wd2048: Cape Beer
• jeffbearer: V is for Vorlauf
• mckt_: Caskablanca; Beer window; Aleien;
• The_Brew_Co: Bridge Over the River Kwak
• Wd2048: The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the Keg
• ChipperDave: The Day the Fermentation Stood Still
• Wd2048: A Clockwork OrangeStout
• The_Brew_Co: Eisenbock Age
• ChipperDave: Witness for the Flocculation
• Wd2048: Northern Brewer by Northwest
• csjordan: ShockTop Gun
• The_Brew_Co: Some Like it Hop
• jeffbearer: A Jereboam named Duvel
• ginsoak: beer window
• mckt_: The Malty Falcon
• jennfisher: Barley and Me
• arepeejee: BeerFest
• thorongil: The Breakfast Stout Club
• thorongil: Arthur Guinness
• timmay628: Heineken do bad all by myself
• jabella72: Fastimes at Ridgemont High Gravity
• timmay628: Peroni & Michelle’s High School Reunion
• The_Brew_Co: How the West(malle) was won
• Wd2048: The Treasure of the Sierra Nevada
• jaelmchenry: Revenge of the Pilsnerds
• SamLanes: Enter The Copper Dragon
• ChipperDave: Raiders of the Lost Abbey
• abeeraday: Dude, Where’s by Carboy
• The_Brew_Co: Harry Porter and the half pint prince
• mckt_: Star Worts
• The_Brew_Co: E.T. The Extra-(special bitter) Terrestrial
• jabella72: The Big Le’Brewski
• jabella72: The Brews Brothers
• ginsoak: north by northwestmalle
• abeeraday: No Country for Old Ale
• The_Brew_Co: Ale About Eve
• rnast: Das Boot
• snacks728: Brew Moon
• djacra: Dude Where’s my Bar?
• The_Brew_Co: The Geuze Brothers
• csjordan: Star Trek III: The Search for Shiner Bock
• dan2bit: Robohop
• dan2bit: Barley and Me
• The_Brew_Co: Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doombar
• randyclemensesq: Reservoir Bocks
• abeeraday: Brew Moon
• beerbabe: Monty Python and the Holy Ale
• aalmagirl: Lager than life
• The_Brew_Co: The Last Frontier
• dan2bit: Barley and the Bock-lite Factory, Weiss Age II: The Maltdown, The Parent Trappis
• The_Brew_Co: Indiana Jones and the last Cascade
• jabella72: Terms of Em-Beer-Ment
• egadsman: StarWort
• sactodd: Dunkel Buck
• randyclemensesq: Jackie Nut Brown
• BetterBeerBlog: Piraats of the Carribean
• TheBrewDude: There’s Something About Malty
• TheChadd: Brewno
• The_Brew_Co: Once Upon a Time in the West(malle)
• BetterBeerBlog: Charlie and the Chocolate Stout Factory
• TheBrewDude: Boon-Bock Saint’s
• abeeraday: Hop Gun
• FreitagBrewing: Rack to the Future
• Static_Age337: Blue Moon – The Tall Pint Saga
• MikeLovesBeer: Dogfish Day Afternoon
• The_Brew_Co: Perle Harbour
• The_Brew_Co: The Man Who Shot Liberty Vallance
• The_Brew_Co: Good Will(amette) Hunting
• The_Brew_Co: (Brewers) Gold Finger
• The_Brew_Co: American Werewolf in London Pride
• The_Brew_Co: yEast is yEast
• mfstromski: Beer Hunter
• billybroas: Wayne’s World Wide Stout
• esjaygee: Barley Davidson & the Maltborough man
• randyclemensesq: Inglourious Arrogant Bastards
• esjaygee: Live and Let Diacetyl
• billybroas: Gangs of New Belgium
• adamcroft: Das Blond
• esjaygee: Garrett Oliver Twist
• TheChadd: CHUD — CoHumulone Urban Drinker
• karolynj: Harry Potter and the Porter of the Phoenix
• randyclemensesq: Citizen Grain
• Wd2048: Son of the Mash
• mchorich: Wort’s New Pussycat?
• karolynj: Beverly Hills Bock
• TheChadd: Eisbock Age
• esjaygee: @craftbeerradio Double feature! The Bad News @jeffbearer & Three Greg Weiss men.
• TheChadd: The @brewingnetwork
• randyclemensesq: March of the Tactical Nuclear Penguins
• tviemont: Taddy Porter and the Prisoner of Cantillon
• _jds_: Wortigo
• billybroas: SiIence of the Lambic
• MikeLovesBeer: Dawn of the Dead Guy
• ferment_nation: Second Cool Runnings
• mchorich: Anything with Alec Guinness, Wallace Beery, Dennis Hopper, Teresa Brewer in it. Directed by G.W. Pabst, of course.
• ferment_nation: Spinal “Perlick” Tap
• BetterBeerBlog: Men in Bock
• BetterBeerBlog: Crouching Lager, Hidden Dragoon Dry Irish Stout
• ferment_nation: Fear and Foaming in Las Vegas
• ferment_nation: Glengarry Glen Irish Moss
• chriskrone: Cape Beer
• chriskrone: Beer and Loathing in Las Vegas
• chriskrone: You’ve Got Ale
• ginsoak: duvel’s advocate; the hunt for red oktoberfest
• seventyb: Live to Drink Another Day
• rsaeks: Spatenacus
• BrewGoddess: Jungle Bock
• BrewGoddess: The World According to Harp
• BrewGoddess: Guinness Who’s Coming to Dinner
• BrewGoddess: The Wizard of OG
• BrewGoddess: Star Worts: Episode IV – A New Hop
• BrewGoddess: Star Worts: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Bock
• BrewGoddess: Star Worts: Episode VI – Return of the HopRye
• BrewGoddess: Star Worts: Episode I – The Fantome In Us
• BrewGoddess: Star Worts: Episode II – Attack of the Beer Clones
• BrewGoddess: Episode III – Revenge if the Sixth Glass