The Man Who Brought Beer to the Big Screen

You realize just how incredibly mainstream craft beer has become when it serves as a primary setting for a contemporary romantic comedy. We recently had the opportunity to talk with Drinking Buddies Writer and Director Joe Swanberg about his new movie, the help he received from area brewers, and of course, his own love of craft beer.

ACB: We had a team discussion and we don’t know any other movies that take place in a contemporary American craft brewery.

Joe Swanberg: I sort of was wondering myself about five years ago as I was really getting into craft beer and was already making movies…why I hadn’t seen it before. It’s strange, isn’t it?

ACB: It is strange. It has become such a big part of our culture and how we communicate.

JS: I totally agree. When I started homebrewing, I was becoming more interested in what other people were drinking. So yeah, I have been quite heavily involved in it for a while now, and each year, it’s just sort of getting more popular. I can go to 7-11 now and get Three Floyds. The landscape is so different than it was a few years ago, so it seemed to me about time to set a movie in that world. And you know there was part of me that was probably a little protective, where if eventually a movie was going to be set in a craft brewery, I wanted it to be done right. And I felt like I knew enough that I could tell the story in an honest way. At least the aspects of the actual brewing that happened in the movie I could get right, rather than the Hollywood glamor shot version of what a brewer does every day.

ACB: We really loved that part. To be able to sit and watch Jake Johnson and say: “he’s actually making beer.”

JS: Yeah, exactly. They were up and running while we were shooting! So if you see Jake pouring a Home Depot bucket of hops into a boil, that was beer that was going to go out to the marketplace. They did not shut down for us, so everything you see him doing in the movie, that’s actually going into real beer. It was fun that they integrated us into the process in that way, because then it makes it really real, you know?

ACB: Jake (Luke) had a lot of swag in the movie, like the Abita sweatshirt.

JS: Yeah, on the beach and then back on the porch, right? We reached out to the beer community. I was nervous because there hadn’t been a movie. Because [the craft beer scene] was getting so popular these days, I was nervous that the community would smell a rat and suspect that we were just a bunch of Hollywood people trying to capitalize on it. So we made sure that everyone knew that I lived in Chicago and that I was into the community. Also, my friend Andrew Mason – who I’ve known since high school – brews at Three Floyds now, and my friend Kate is at Half Acre, so we had advocates who were letting people in the industry know that we weren’t just trying to glom on to the popularity of craft beer. And once the word got out, it was really exciting to see the support we got. Founders sent us stuff, Three Floyds was really helpful, Half Acre was really helpful. I wanted it to be specifically Midwest beer, so we didn’t reach too far out, but we got support from Firestone Walker, from Abita, from Avery, some others from outside of the Midwest sent us hats and T-shirts. There’s a Dogfish Head shirt in the movie. That was important to me. It was important to open the movie up to those that wanted to be involved.

ACB: Were any of the cast fans of craft beer?

JS: A little bit. Like most people, it was just starting to be in their consciousness. It’s really exciting because you can’t really go anywhere without seeing at least a couple of taps of craft stuff. And it was exciting to me to be able to bring them into it. At the end of the shoot, they had very different attitudes than when they started, and I suspect that all of them now seek out craft, where before they had tried it but weren’t crazy about it or anything.

ACB: The film is set at Revolution Brewing. How did you make that happen?

JS: Olivia’s job in the film is based on my friend Kate from Half Acre, so we checked there and a couple of other breweries. But we would have really gummed up the works if we had filmed at Half Acre. And Rev had this big beautiful space that they had only been brewing in for three months, and it was a really nice fit. Beyond that, my wife owned an ice cream company here in Chicago called Nice Cream, where she did a stout and brownies ice cream. Her kitchen was right next to Rev’s brewpub, so she used their beer in it. She had a good relationship with Josh at Rev, and he was always someone who was interested in local stuff. So we went and talked to him and he was just so great. Everyone at Rev was great. Josh rose to the challenge and took a risk because you never know how it’s going to go. They were still working out kinks and trying to get their canning line up and going, and I’m sure that on more than a few occasions, we were in the way a little bit, but it just goes to show you how supportive the craft beer scene is. The easy thing to do is say no, and everybody, even those that we decided to not shoot in, their instinct wasn’t to say no, but to try and make it work. And I think that goes for the whole scene.

ACB: You are a homebrewer and a craft beer lover. What are some of your favorites?

JS: Oh good! I love this question! Alright, I’ll try to give you my top-5 right now. Three Floyds Zombie Dust is definitely in that list. I have always loved the Half Acre Daisy Cutter, but right now their Akari Shogun – their hoppy wheat beer – is really amazing. Revolution Anti-Hero, that’s been consistently one of my favorites since they brewed that. Lagunitas Little Sumpin’ Sumpin’, and….what would be my 5^th desert island beer? My list is all hoppy stuff right now! Let’s see if I can expand a little bit outside of that. Oh, you know what, the Great Lakes Dortmunder Gold, I would go with a really nice lager. But I could talk to you about it all day. I know I gave myself a 5-beer limit, but every year, brewers come up with new things.

Drinking Buddies opens in select cities August 23 and is currently available via Video on Demand. It was an Official Selection at the 2013 SXSW Film Festival, the 2013 Seattle International Film Festival, and the 2013 Maryland Film Festival.