Beer Wars
Beer Wars Movie Analysis
Beer Wars is a documentary film directed and produced by Anat Baron and released in April of 2009. It focuses on the struggle between the dominating corporate businesses of Anheuser-Busch, Miller Brewing Company, Coors Brewing Company, and the smaller independent businesses of “craft beers” such as Dogfish Head Brewery, The Boston Beer Company, and The New Belgium Brewing Company. The film covers many aspects of the beer “wars” between the companies such as competitive advertising, product quality, price, distribution, and government regulations. Because of the enormous status and power of the big three, the ability to advertise and market their wares is significantly easier than for most other breweries. From being able to hire top dollar marketing experts to running multimillion dollar commercials during the Super Bowl, they dominate the beer advertising market. With their lack of ability to buy “shelf space”, smaller companies are often pushed out of the way and driven to less marketable places in the aisles of stores nationwide. Rhonda Kallman, owner of The New Century Brewing company, known for its craft beer “Moonshot”, talked about how she often would put up a poster advertising her beer one day only to find it replaced by a competitor’s poster the next day. This is a glimpse at the competitiveness that small breweries face day to day. Today, The New Century Brewing company is currently shut down due to the FDA’s banning of caffeinated beers; Moonshot fell victim to this regulatory axe. This is what happens when the bread and butter of your company can no longer be produced. The fall of Kallman’s company, however, is just another tragic story in the long history of beer manufactures. By the late 70‘s and early 80‘s, many people turned towards homebrewing to meet their taste needs because of the bland taste of the larger breweries products. Charlie Papazian was one of those people. A nuclear engineer at the
Beer Wars is a documentary film directed and produced by Anat Baron and released in April of 2009. It focuses on the struggle between the dominating corporate businesses of Anheuser-Busch, Miller Brewing Company, Coors Brewing Company, and the smaller independent businesses of “craft beers” such as Dogfish Head Brewery, The Boston Beer Company, and The New Belgium Brewing Company. The film covers many aspects of the beer “wars” between the companies such as competitive advertising, product quality, price, distribution, and government regulations. Because of the enormous status and power of the big three, the ability to advertise and market their wares is significantly easier than for most other breweries. From being able to hire top dollar marketing experts to running multimillion dollar commercials during the Super Bowl, they dominate the beer advertising market. With their lack of ability to buy “shelf space”, smaller companies are often pushed out of the way and driven to less marketable places in the aisles of stores nationwide. Rhonda Kallman, owner of The New Century Brewing company, known for its craft beer “Moonshot”, talked about how she often would put up a poster advertising her beer one day only to find it replaced by a competitor’s poster the next day. This is a glimpse at the competitiveness that small breweries face day to day. Today, The New Century Brewing company is currently shut down due to the FDA’s banning of caffeinated beers; Moonshot fell victim to this regulatory axe. This is what happens when the bread and butter of your company can no longer be produced. The fall of Kallman’s company, however, is just another tragic story in the long history of beer manufactures. By the late 70‘s and early 80‘s, many people turned towards homebrewing to meet their taste needs because of the bland taste of the larger breweries products. Charlie Papazian was one of those people. A nuclear engineer at the