Steve Atkinson, who does great video work for the Celebrator and others, put together this fun video from last night’s SF Beer Week opening celebration at the Concourse Exhibition Hall in San Francisco. Enjoy.
Schlafly, Texas Ranger
If this hilarious video for the annual The Repeal of Prohibition Beer Festival doesn’t make you want to attend, I don’t know what else would. The festival will be held at Schlafly Bottleworks in St. Louis, Missouri on Saturday, April 14th, 2012 from noon until 5:00 p.m.
The American Beer Revival
Regular Bulletin readers know how much I love infographics, a marriage of data and graphic illustration that shows information in a beautiful and understandable way. So I was thrilled when I got an e-mail this morning from a new Silicon Valley start-up, Visual.ly, whose mission is just that, to create and help others create cool visual charts, infographics and videos.
One of their latest works is The American Beer Revival, created by Nate Whitson. Here’s how they describe it:
Over the last hundred or so years, the brewing industry in the United States has changed dramatically. From the saloon era through consolidation to today’s flourishing craft beer culture, it’s been quite a ride. Take a look at how the small brewer is making quite a comeback after nearly a half century of decline.
But better yet, just watch.
What’s SF Beer Week Like?
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.
Beer Tree: The Ultimate Christmas Project
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.
Heineken Christmas Tree In Hawaii
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.
Carol of the Beers
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!
Mother’s Brewing Spoofs Laverne & Shirley
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.
Make Lew Bryson’s Christmas A Happy One!
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 days to go, only 6% of the needed funds to make the show a reality have been raised. A mere 65 people have pledged $3,716 of the $60K needed. Frankly, that’s pathetic.
C’mon, beer people. I’ve pledged $300, and would have gone higher if I wasn’t trying to make a rather large purchase at the moment. Surely, there are more than 65 people who have benefitted from Lew Bryson’s reviews, laughter, rantings, writings, speaking engagements, etc. Just his being in the beer community makes it a better place. We’ve all seen what happens when non-beer people try to make a TV show about beer. At best it comes off half-baked, full of misinformation, half-truths and propaganda. At worst, it’s a disaster. I’ve personally been involved in trying to get several such projects off the ground. None have gotten very far. It’s tough. Most people outside our rarified community don’t quite get why we’re so passionate about it, and that shows in the finished products that have been made so far.
So here’s a chance for one of our own to be the voice of craft beer, celebrating it in a way we can probably all agree with. And with guaranteed laughter, guffaws and unbridled chuckles thrown in for good measure. Lew is the right big galoot for this job.
Lew has just over 2,500 twitter followers, I have a little over 4,000. Even assuming for some overlap, that’s got to be around 6,000. If each one of you pledged just $10, Lew would be home for Christmas, with all the funding he needs. It’s the price of about two pints, give or take. Surely that’s not too much to create a one-of-kind television show about craft beer, by craft beer, for craft beer. Think of it as giving back to the beer community that has enriched your life, in the spirit of the holidays. Give Lew Bryson a Malty Christmas and a Hoppy New Year.
You can get all the details from my previous post or, better still, directly from the Kickstarter project page for American Beer Blogger.
Okay, I’m climbing back down off my soapbox. Resume holiday merriment.
Me and Lew at Berkeley’s Triple Rock last year.
Ken Burns Discusses Prohibition
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 of the interview on Reason.tv, I thought I’d share that version of the Prohibition interview.