Brewing up a plan – film tells how local scene stopped crying into their beer to help charity
Documentary about rescued festival set to debut this weekend at the Drygate brewery in Glasgow, discovers Sean Murphy
When one of Glasgow’s most popular beer festivals collapsed in July last year, in the wake of the company which ran it going into administration, the local beer scene quickly sprang to the rescue.
Just over a month later, Beer Makes Glasgow was born, rising from the ashes of the Great Scottish Beer Celebration.
The event was the brainchild of the the brewers and people involved in Glasgow’s craft beer community, who took it upon themselves to attempt to rebrand and save the doomed festival and provide a way to ensure the many tickets already sold to the public didn’t go to waste.
Eventually going ahead on 25 and 26 of August at the Glasgow School of Art, the organisers decided that the new festival should have charity at heart, with all ticket profits donated to the Drumchapel food bank and all the previously sold tickets for the original event remaining valid.
Thanks to the generosity of the BMG team and the popularity of the revamped event, more than £2000 was raised.
Now, freelance videographer Guy Thomson is set to debut a short film this Sunday at Drygate Brewery in Glasgow’s east end, documenting the story behind the festival and the excellent work being done by Drumchapel food bank. It features interviews with a wide range of contributors including Liz and Ryan Mcgeady of Drumchapel food bank; Jehad Hatu of Grunting Growler; Darren ‘Loki’ Mcgarvey, author of Poverty Safari; Jake Griffin of Up Front Brewing, Sam Corden of Drygate and Conor Mcgeady of the West End Beer Festival.
Along with access to the upstairs bar and the film contributors in attendance, the organisers are also hoping to encourage people to take part in an informal discussion on the night with regard to issues raised in the film.
Conormcgeadysaidthatguestscan donate money towards the food bank and that there will be some intriguing guest beers on offer.
He said: “I was contacted by Jake Griffin of Up Front and asked if I would be interested in helping orchestrate the organisation of a revamped festival that would take the place of the Great Scottish Beer Celebration.
“He had spoken to a few of the key breweries involved with GSBC and they figured they could really make a go of it. It was decided from the start that the resurrected event was going to be in aid of charity.
“Both my mum and younger brother work full time running Drumchapel food bank and I really pushed for them to be our chosen charity. Having volunteered with them, I have seen what fantastic work they do, I knew how important it was to help them.
“I can’t wait for the showing and to see Guy’s hard work pay off, thank him, and of course reveal our dates and new venue for this year! Hopefully this is just the beginning of BMG.”
Film maker Guy said the inspiration to create the film came when Conor told him what had happened to the Great Scottish Beer Celebration while the pair were filming a promo for the Westend Beer Festival.
He said: “I immediately thought there was a story arc forming and that it would make a great mini documentary so I came up with rough concept and pitched it to brewers.
“They were all really keen so that was that. Food banks were also featuring in the news a lot at the time. I figured it was something relevant that people cared about, and I should try and do what I could to raise some exposure to the important work that goes on behind the scenes by all the volunteers that work there.
“Everyone involved has been great to work with and they have all been really keen to help make the film a success.”