Directed by Christo Brock
Written by Christo Brock & Sonja Schenk
Running Time: 1 hour and 42 minutes
Available digitally April 13

by Ian Hrabe, Staff Writer

Beer is so integral to human civilization that there are fair arguments out there about whether or not it is the reason we have civilization in the first place. That is to say, agriculture is what civilized us, and the reason we turned to agriculture was to grow the stuff that made that sweet, sweet nectar that both nourished us and made us feel pretty damn good. It’s surprising that there hasn’t been a mainstream documentary that covers beer’s fascinating history, and after watching Brewmance…well, I’m still waiting for that doc. But Brewmance is a nice, surface level look at craft beer, home brewing, and the rigors of establishing a microbrewery. 

Though beer is integral to humanity on a macro level, it’s integral on a micro level as well. I think we all have memories of when we had our first beer (i.e. savoring the piss water that is Coors Light after hunting with my dad and uncle and thus going full straight edge until I was in college) and when we had our first beer that actually tasted good (i.e. taking a sip of someone’s Fat Tire Amber Ale on a college town porch and thinking, “Hey, beer isn’t terrible after all!”). I also have a vivid memory of seeing a buddy’s homebrew setup for the first time. I was baffled at the idea that someone would think to make their own beer in a basement, but that his beer actually tasted like, well, beer. “If you can make a box of mac and cheese, you can make beer,” he told me. Eventually I acquired all of the home brewing accoutrements and started my own home brewing journey. Most of my brews were terrible, but learning about the process was eye opening and gave me a greater appreciation for beer and how much of a pain in the ass it is to make a good one. 

Brewmance tells a couple of different stories. While it doesn’t track beer back to its ancient Sumerian origins, it does tell the story of the rise of American craft beer which is almost as miraculous. Prohibition effectively killed most breweries and by the time the law was lifted, the breweries that had survived turned to churning out palatable, flavorless, easy drinking “American Lager.” From the Boomer rebellion of the 1970s sprung the American craft beer movement, and the film does a great job showing how much of a struggle it was to break into a market that had spent decades thinking of beer as one thing and one thing only. Cut to the 2020s where there’s seemingly a microbrewery on every corner and good beer can be spoken of in the same breath as good wine. This is a subject worthy of not just its own documentary, but a docuseries, and thus Brewmance does a good job introducing you to the subject, but never goes more than skin deep. 

In addition to the rise of craft beer in America, Brewmance also chronicles a couple of Southern California microbreweries working to convert empty strip mall spaces into bustling rooms of brewing equipment. Though the folks founding the breweries—Liberation Brewing Company and Ten Mile Brewing Company—are different enough that it doesn’t feel like the doc is double dipping, these segments are where the filmmaking is at its clumsiest.

The brewery building sequences illustrate director Christo Brock’s inability to rein in his subject matter. This is never more obvious than when Liberation Brewing founder and former Reel Big Fish trombonist Dan Regan is on screen. The guy’s natural charisma and big personality makes him a compelling figure, but Brock too often lets Regan steer the ship. The Liberation Brewing guys all have such different personalities that it makes for quality cinema when they bicker with each other, but Regan has a tendency to try to make himself seem so funny and charming that it distracts from the movie. I’m thinking of one scene in particular where Regan is being filmed walking to his day job and puts his fist in the air a la the end of The Breakfast Club. You can tell it’s his idea, and it’s one of the many nitpicks that could have been fixed with better editing.

The father and son founders of Ten Mile Brewing Co couldn’t be more different than the Liberation guys, and though the process of building out a brewery is effectively the same, their story about constantly being at odds with each other to finding a common interest in brewing is the heart of the film. The father is deeply Christian, and I found his way of rationalizing brewing beer as fulfilling a sort of Christian mission oddly compelling. He’s like an embodiment of the old saw “beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.” There’s also still a lot of tension between father and son that you can tell is being tamped down for the camera which, again, is oddly compelling. As flawed as Brock’s work was with the Liberation Brewing guys, he does an admiral job here, likely because the personalities he has to contend with are smaller and sweeter. 

For better or worse, Brewmance feels like something you would see on the Food Network. It’s interesting, kind of corny, and as long as you like watching people making food (or in this case beer) you’re probably going to enjoy it. But there’s just not enough substance to make it work as well as it could. Then again, I set my bar pretty high and you could do a lot worse if you’re looking for an entertaining primer to the world of craft beer and homebrewing.