John Heylin, of the Nor Cal Beer Guide, along with several other BABB members, created a little spoof or homage film for SF Beer Week entitled What’s SF Beer Week Like? Drawing on Reservoir Dogs and the cult status of Russian River’s Pliny the Elder, the minute and a half video might make you cry, especially if you can’t get Pliny in your hometown. But fear not. As is revealed in the end credits; “No Pliny the Elder was harmed in the making of this video.”
Here’s how John describes his film: “How spoiled is the Bay Area when it comes to beer? This spoiled. Come check out SF Beer Week from February 10th-19th and spoil yourself silly.” I spoke to Vinnie Cilurzo at Russian River Brewing today, and he loved the video, thought it hilarious and sent it to all his employees.
Here’s yet another beer bottle Christmas tree, this one from 2007. It was “built from 1050 stubbies (250ml bottles), equivalent to 462 pints. Tied together with 300 meters of wire and decorated with 200 lights, with a bubble lamp in the centre, the tree stands 2 meters high and 1 meter wide at the base.” Hoppy Christmas.
This isn’t exactly new, but it’s still pretty cool, despite using green bottles. They may not be great for keeping UV light out of the beer, but they do work great for building Christmas trees. Completed in 2006, 2000 Heineken bottles are controlled by animated lighting equipment built by the homeowner.
This is pretty cool, despite the Corona bottles. According to the musician who made the video, BoTLpLayA, “[he] play[s] Carol of the Bells on perfectly tuned corona bottles (they make the best sound), by “plucking” them with [his] finger.” Hmm, not sure that makes sense, but who am I to argue with the results. Enjoy!
Ha, this is funny spoof, especially if you remember the Happy Days spin-off Laverne & Shirley, who worked at the fictional Shotz Brewery, which was located in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Mother’s Brewing is not to far away (just a few states and not quite 600 miles) in Springfield, Missouri, and they’ve created their own version of the opening sequence from the television show. Enjoy.
Today is the 37th birthday of Bryan Selders, who until March of this year was lead brewer of Dogfish Head Craft Brewery and one-half of the hip hop duo The Pain Relievaz. I first met Bryan at Hop School in Yakima, Washington several years ago and he’s a terrifically talented and fun person. These days he’s working as a web designer at Inclind. Join me in wishing Bryan a very happy birthday.
Bryan with his boss Sam on picture day at the brewery.
Bryan with some of his “fans.”
The cover of the latest CD, Awesome = Yes, the Pain Relievaz Greatest Hits, available nowhere as far as I can tell. But below is Bryan and Sam in the video “Pinchin’ Pennies.”
Okay people, time to step up to the bar. A month ago, a new project was announced on Kickstarter starring my friend and colleague Lew Bryson. The project is being produced by Rudy Vegliante of Green Leaf Productions and the idea is to create a series of six half-hour television shows starring Lew. With 30 [...]
I suspect many of you watched the Ken Burns documentary series Prohibition, based on the Daniel Okrent book Last Call, when it aired a few months ago on PBS. In the latest issue of Reason magazine there is an interview with Ken Burns, discussing the documentary. Since they mentioned that there was a filmed version [...]
A new project was announced yesterday on Kickstarter starring my friend and colleague Lew Bryson. The project is being produced by Rudy Vegliante of Green Leaf Productions and the idea is to create a series of six half-hour television shows starring Lew. Here’s how the project is described on the Kickstarter project page for American [...]
Monday, I posted some PSA’s aiming to prevent drunk driving in rural Australia — Prevent Mate Morphosis. They used something we’re not used to seeing here in the U.S.: humor. Now here’s another great PSA, this time from New Zealand, that uses a sense of humor to get its message across without pandering or using [...]
Here’s a fun video about craft beer’s struggles to get to market. With a hat tip to Brian Stechschulte at Bay Area Craft Beer, it’s a student film by a Michael Jolly, done for his “Motion Graphics class. It’s an animated info graphic concerning American Craft Beer. I created all artwork, narration, and animation myself. [...]
At least a dozen people have e-mailed me a link to this video, so I bow to the will of the people and share it with the remaining couple of people who may not yet have seen it. It’s a simple idea, using beer bottles (and some liquor bottles, too) in place of dominoes, but [...]
Today is Garrett Oliver’s 49th birthday. Garrett is the head brewer at Brooklyn Brewery and has done more for the craft beer industry to promote pairing food and beer than just about any other person alive. If you haven’t picked up a copy of his book, The Brewmaster’s Table, you should do so as soon [...]
Recycle Now, the organization putting on Recycle Week, which begins today, also has a very cool little animated video showing the process that beer cans go through during the recycling process. Cans – how they are recycled from RecycleNow on Vimeo.
Here’s a fun video forwarded to me by Push Eject, who’s both the Production Director with The Brewing Network and also involved in Heretic Brewing. The commercial is for the Hahn Brewery, founded by legendary Australian brewer Chuck Hahn, who today runs the Malt Shovel Brewery. The Hahn brands were bought by brewing giant Lion [...]
I was one of 42 beer writers who contributed to this big 960-page book telling the stories of 1,001 world-famous beers. The book is now available at Amazon.com and other fine booksellers.
