Raise your glass to these shows about beer
With the weather warming up and beer season around the corner, there are plenty of excuses to swig down some brewskis.
Beer is one of the most important inventions in human history, so it’s not surprising that a ton of films and television episodes have been made about it. Here are some satisfying streaming offerings to get you ready to crack open some cold ones during the warmer months.
‘Strange Brew’ (1983)
When it comes to epic fictional beer films, the conversation starts with “Strange Brew.” Starring Rick Moranis and Dave Thomas, it’s a spinoff of the Canadian sketch comedy show “SCTV” and its “Great White North” segments. Brothers Bob and Doug McKenzie hatch a scheme to get free beer by saying they found a rat in a bottle, only to end up working at a brewery where an evil brewmaster (Max von Sydow) plans to conquer Earth by lacing his product with mind-control drugs.
The film was somewhat of a bomb when it first debuted but became a comedy cult hit after Moranis rose to stardom in the 1980s. Now, it’s widely regarded as one of the greatest comedies about beer of all time.
Watch it: Streaming on Prime Video.
‘Creepshow: Gray Matter’ (2019)
Beer shows up in a lot of horror, but the stories are rarely about beer. One shining exception is “Gray Matter,” from the first episode of Shudder’s “Creepshow.” Based on a short story by Stephen King, it follows an alcoholic father (Jesse C. Boyd) who drinks a contaminated beer and grows into a cannibalistic fungus monster.
Tobin Bell (“Saw”) and Giancarlo Esposito (“The Mandalorian”) play small-town officials who investigate the matter — pun intended. The creature effects are phenomenal, as is the haunting setting of a town evacuated for a massive hurricane while something sinister grows inside it.
Watch it: Streaming on Shudder.
‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Beer Bad’ (1999)
One of the more hilarious episodes of the iconic series “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” involved modified beer. In Season 4, an evil pub owner (Stephen M. Porter), still bitter from years of being bullied as a teen, enchants his beer so it turns local college kids into violent Neanderthals. One of the victims is Buffy herself (Sarah Michelle Gellar).
In a twist, the episode was written to secure funding from the Office of National Drug Control Policy to promote anti-drug use messages. That funding was denied when the office found the episode to be “nonsense.” In the writers’ defense, it is a wonderfully silly episode, famous for its quip that the only lesson learned about beer was that it was “foamy.”
Watch it: Streaming on Hulu.
‘Craft: The California Beer Documentary’ (2015)
For a look at the ins and outs of the Golden State’s enormous craft brewery scene, check out this documentary from director Jeff Smith. It explores the state’s beer masters, from San Diego to Eureka, including then-emerging superstars like Russian River Brewing Co. coowner Vinnie Cilurzo, Stone Brewing co-founder Greg Koch and Monkish Brewing Co. co-founder Henry Nguyen.
The documentary was definitely made with hard-core beer fans in mind rather than being a journalistic dissection of the scene. There are plenty of long shots of tasty beer, with a variety of colorful characters telling pleasant stories about their time in the industry. Mostly, it’s a celebration of modern brewing in the state, and a nice way to spend an afternoon learning about beer.
Watch it: Streaming on Prime Video.
‘How Beer Saved the World’ (2011)
Beer is far more important to history than most people realize. Entire civilizations sprang up around the need for brewing infrastructure, influencing everything from the Great Pyramids to how we do math. Discovery Channel executive producer Alan Eyres created a fantastic hourlong documentary detailing all the ways beer built the modern world.
Starting around 9,000 B.C., the film shows brief re-creations of ancient Mesopotamia stumbling across fermentation, and gradually building the necessary components to keep the beer flowing. Expert testimony is mixed with industrial footage segments to keep the subject fun and interesting. For a beer lover who wants to know why beer is everywhere, it’s well worth the watch.
Watch it: Streaming on Prime Video.