{"id":25649,"date":"2021-08-03T12:37:43","date_gmt":"2021-08-03T19:37:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/hi-lo\/?p=30000021445"},"modified":"2021-08-03T14:02:54","modified_gmt":"2021-08-03T21:02:54","slug":"documentary-film-brewmance-liberation-brewing-ten-mile-brewing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/hi-lo\/documentary-film-brewmance-liberation-brewing-ten-mile-brewing","title":{"rendered":"Long Beach craft beer scene is the star in documentary film ‘Brewmance’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Christo Brock never planned on making a movie about brewing craft beer.<\/p>\n

Coming down from his last film “Touch the Wall” (2014), an acclaimed documentary about two Olympic swimmers from Colorado, Brock admitted that his next film would have to be something closer to home so that he could be more present in his young daughter\u2019s life.<\/p>\n

He had a few ideas floating in his mind. But brewing? It hadn\u2019t even made the list.<\/p>\n

The local documentary filmmaker first thought he\u2019d dive into the history and process of making wine (he\u2019s been mostly a wine drinker all his 56 years) or delve into the fresh world of cannabis farming. Then there was the idea about what makes country music songwriters tick.<\/p>\n

But a lightbulb went off in his mind one day when he discovered the mad backyard scientists of the Long Beach Homebrewers, a tight-knit local brewing community where its members convene once a month to sip their homebrews and share recipes.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just thought, wow, that sounds pretty awesome, I wonder whether that’s the way the craft beer movement started,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd it turns out, through research, that\u2019s exactly what happened.\u201d<\/p>\n

He attended the first meeting incognito, posing as a \u201cnewbie\u201d homebrewer looking for some creative tricks of the trade. There he met Dan Sundstrom and his son Jesse, who he overheard were in the process of opening their first brewery, what would later become Ten Mile Brewing in Signal Hill.<\/p>\n

Through Sundstrom, Brock later met the guys who in 2018 opened Liberation Brewing Co. in Bixby Knolls: Dan Regan (formerly the trombonist for Reel Big Fish), brewer Eric McLaughlin and partner Michael Clements.<\/p>\n

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Eric McLaughlin (left) and Dan Regan (right) of Liberation Brewing Co. Image courtesy Brocklamation Films.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cBrewmance\u201d follows the journeys of Ten Mile Brewing and Liberation Brewing Co. from their discovery of homebrewing to their escapades while they attempt to take their backyard hobby and level up to beer entrepreneurs.<\/p>\n

As we follow the inevitable ups and downs of our local homebrewers building their breweries from the ground up, the film also recounts the rise of the U.S. craft brew movement of the 1970s and \u201880s through interviews with some of the forefathers of craft brewing, including Anchor Steam\u2019s Fritz Maytag, Sierra Nevada\u2019s Ken Grossman, Sam Adam\u2019s Jim Koch and Charlie Papazian, considered to be the godfather of craft brewing.<\/p>\n

After three years of filming (over 600 hours of footage), 18 months of editing, plus a pandemic tacked on top, \u201cBrewmance\u201d was finally released April 14 and, more recently, made available for streaming on Amazon Prime June 11.<\/p>\n

On Saturday, July 31, \u201cBrewmance\u201d was publicly screened for the first time at Liberation Brewing Co. to an audience of about 70 guests, including friends and family of the film\u2019s protagonists. Those in attendance experienced the film as Brock had intended it: with lots of beer to go around.<\/p>\n

For the occasion, Liberation Brewing Co. brewed a wheat lager they named \u201cEssential Insanity,\u201d arguably the quality all homebrewers must possess to brave the haphazard path of launching their own brewery.<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t easy having the cameras around, Dan Sundstrom said of the experience, and his family had a tougher time adjusting to the cameras than he had (he was a food photographer in the \u201880s and worked in film). But overall, he said, the film was positively received.<\/p>\n

\u201cI absolutely loved it, you know, it really tells the story of beer in America. And it being a kind of truly American thing,\u201d Dan Sundstrom said of the film. \u201cIt used to be that America was like the laughingstock of the world when it came to beer.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Dan Sundstron’s son, Jesse, pouring a beer inside his taproom at Ten Mile Brewing. Image courtesy Brocklamation Films.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Brock expanded on this by explaining that craft brewing was born out of a “wasteland of beer,” dominated by the industry giants (Budweiser, Coors, Pabst) who had set the status quo for beer. Namely, muted lagers.<\/p>\n

“And it was this kind of rebellion on the part of certain rascally homebrewers who said, ‘screw that, that beer sucks, I\u2019m gonna make beer that tastes good and that I want to drink,'” Brock said.<\/p>\n

\u201cBrewmance\u201d is a palatable film that breaks down the complexities of brewing for the average viewer, but honest and entertaining enough for the pros who are likely to commiserate and celebrate with their on-screen comrades.<\/p>\n

And for locals, the coming up story of the beloved breweries will fascinate viewers and perhaps conjure some wistful emotions as the movie is a golden snapshot of a localized industry in full swing, cut short by the COVID-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n

\u201cI watched craft beer sort of take hold in Long Beach, which is pretty awesome,\u201d Brock said.<\/p>\n

Brock said he hopes to show the film at the Art Theatre of Long Beach in the coming months. The film is also available to stream on iTunes, Google Play, Vudu or Amazon Prime. Click here<\/a> to find a streaming platform.<\/p>\n