Beers of Joy

So as not to bury one of the leads, lemme start out by saying that Beers of Joy certainly lives up to its title. The zymurgical spectrum is covered decently well, if slightly – and necessarily, given the format – shallowly, always covered in the same sort of angelic high- and back-lighting one would encounter in newborn photography. (Anyone else completely and utterly weirded out by the work of Anne Geddes, or is that just me?) Everyone involved seems happy, enthusiastic, eager to spread the good word of beer. Can’t disagree with them, honestly, beer’s awesome, and my nearly fifteen-year odyssey into the craft beer world has yielded some fond memories (as well as times I can’t for the life of me remember at all…). Still, I’m a depressed, cynical prick, so I must’ve hated this film because of its sunny demeanor, right? Well, not really. I mean, if that were the case, I wouldn’t have an entire series of reviews of musicals, ‘cause I wouldn’t be able to stomach the lovely lady who’s recommended them all to me. No, I think the best way to illustrate why Beers of Joy falls short for me is to talk about a pair of other, unrelated documentaries. Trust me, it’ll make sense in a jiff.

So, a few years ago, I was talked into watching Indie Game: The Movie, a little flick from 2012 charting the course of the development and release of three of the benchmark indie games of the past decade: Fez, Super Meat Boy, and Braid. The film spends time with each of the primary developers – Phil Fish, Edmund McMillen and Tommy Refenes, and Jonathan Blow, respectively – as they talk about their inspirations, the hurdles they encountered in the run-up to release, and the receptions their respective games garnered. It’s just as intimate and interesting a film as the games featured, and everything is depicted with a general air of reality and vague optimism: you get the full view of things, warts and all, but it’s clear the filmmakers had the same verve as the featured designers, so there’s an optimism present throughout with respect to the future of the indie game scene, just minus any halos or all-out whitewashing.

A couple years later, the game-streaming boom just getting into full swing, Video Games: The Movie was released. We still had some personal stories, but the net was drawn much wider here, encompassing as much of the gaming scene as possible, from “AAA” publishers to the indies we were already familiar with from before, from industry insiders to everyday fans of the pastime. Little is mentioned of struggles or systemic issues or even individual hardships, everything is just hunky-dory while everyone involved fellates an entire segment of the entertainment industry. It’s a celebration of the medium for over an hour-and-a-half, an empty display of back-patting and intra-interest high-fiving. Pure fluff.

Beers of Joy looks to be trying to straddle the border between these two films from the outset, showcasing everything great and profound and enjoyable about beer while centering on certain individuals’ stories: hopeful entrants to the Master Cicerone test (the beer world’s rough equivalent of the Master Sommelier), the still sadly relatively-rare female brewer who’s looking to forge a proper Berliner weiss, a homebrewer who specializes in cooking with beer-centric recipes. Although much of our focus is drawn to these folks, we’re all too often presented with a succession of beer-praising homilies, be they from our “stars” or testimonials from many other people peppered throughout. Admittedly, the stories we follow do present a bit of depth, especially through the nearly agonizing effort we see our test-takers put themselves through, but the ultimate message and veneer of the film is a simple “Beer is good. And stuff.” I could’ve gotten that from Psychostick, and that would at least hold my interest longer.

The sad fact is that there isn’t much here beyond a collective feeling of deep-sniffing the air, cocking the lips into a thoroughly-satisfied smirk-grin, and stating “Man, isn’t beer the best?” Sorry, but I need more. I know beer is great – I’ve certainly drunk enough in my time – I don’t need ninety minutes of industry autoeroticism. I chalk part of this up to the film’s financing, particularly the clearly heavy involvement of Anheuser-Busch, but much of it comes down to the film failing to provide a reason for existence. Nothing of value is gleaned, though there are worse ways to spend the time these days. I mean, it does look pretty nice, I guess, but even the prettiest of wedding cakes these days can be mostly emptily-caloric fondant. Order better, kids.