Reviewer: Dick A.

This is an excellent video. The presentation is basic, complete, and well-rehearsed. The presenter's voice and speech clear and well-articulated. The camera work is definitely professional grade. It has been a while since I saw it. I seem to recall that at some point there was a minor sound problem. Visits by his dog and his very young child were handled with professional poise.

I made the beer (an American Pale Ale) and it was very good.

This video has my highest recommendation.

Reviewer: Greg D.

Video was good information about beer making.

Reviewer: James L.

Grandpa drank Grain Belt. I remember him sitting in the farmhouse kitchen, pulling on a cold can. It’s thirsty work, farming; it’s dusty work, too. After a day on the combine you’re covered with a fine layer of pulverized straw, and if you don’t think a beer is a welcome addition to life at that moment you have no concept of its healing powers. The kids got Shasta, of course. But I was always curious what beer tasted like. Even a six-year old detects the particular satisfaction that crossed an adult’s face when they took a sip of beer; it gave a special pleasure no soda could impart. Eventually you screwed up your courage, and asked: can I taste it?

He leaned over with a grin I would not understand for another thirty years, and said sure. I took a sip from the can. The lip was sharp. The beer was tepid. It tasted like robot urine. I would not drink a beer for eleven years.

In high school the illicit peer-beer was Pabst, and I didn’t like it any more than I’d liked the Grain Belt. In college I worked in a beer hall selling 3.2, a particularly obscene variety of beer that lacked both flavor and purpose. But one day in the summer of 1984 it was humid and hot and I was lonely and underemployed, and a mad daft thought entered my mind: why not a beer. Why not. I went across the street to the convenience store, laid my hands on the cans to see which one was the coldest, sat on the stoop and opened it up. Psssstt. Foam. I drank. Grandpa had been dead eight years, but I thought of him then. Ah. Now I get it.

This led to an interesting journey through the world of beer, and eventually I became something of a beer snob – I’d praise the simple craft-brewed lagers for their naïve presumptions, press thick bitter beers on my friends to educate their palate. Then one day my pants didn’t fit. I went Atkins, cut out the beer, and lost a good deal of weight. Felt great. Had a beer a year later: it was like inhaling a bread smoothie.

I love beer, but I don’t drink it anymore. Still, I remember the days in which I loved it so much I considered brewing my own. Why? Why go to all the bother, when there’s so much incredible beer to be has for a small sum? Well, I could design my own label. That had a certain appeal. But I never did brew my own, because there was something sort of . . . nerdy about it all. For some reason I thought the guys who made their own beer would be like the nerdy bearded fellows who showed up to recreate medieval battles or play Dungeons and Dragons or swap old circuit boards. Unfair, I know. But the minute I saw the name of this disk, that’s the mental picture I had of its host.

Mind you, I haven’t even put it in the DVD player yet, but that’s never stopped me from having a deeply-held opinion.

Well, let’s give it a shot.

Okay. There are two hosts – the Brains of the operation, and Silent Bud, who seems a little self-conscious. He doesn’t say much at first; he just picks up things, then puts them down. It’s shot in someone’s suburban kitchen, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re not a few miles from my own house; I recognize the local brand name on the water they’re using. First we’re making a beer the host describes as having an East Coast flava. Represent! They have at least a dozen ingredients on the table, and they’re ready to make beer. It occurs to me that the one thing you’d want to do after a long day of making beer is have a beer, but you can’t. You have to wait. Or drink something you made before. I suppose it’s worse in the single malt scotch business; the gents get together, make the stuff, then look down at the vat, sigh, and say “well, see you in 12 years, mate.” Then they go have a beer.

I have to admit: I fast-forwarded through the entire thing, because the only thing less interesting than watching two strangers drink beer is watching two strangers drinking beer. I’ll give them huge credit for the old-timey documentary footage they use to set off the chapters; it’s a nice way of setting off the various steps involved in beer-construction. Towards the end they’re stirring the stuff in a plastic bucket you get at Home Depot, which doesn’t realty sum up the romance of the brewer’s art – but I suppose it’s like legislation and sausages. One ought not to see it made. At least we see the beer put into bottles.

Charming moment: one of the host’s kids wanders into the scene and wants attention.

Laconic beer-man moment: they sniff the final product and declare: “Smells like beer.”

It ends with a scratchy old recording of a song called “Hey Joe, Two Beer,” and shows our hosts drinking their product. Neither man falls over and convulses, or goes suddenly blind. It has some great extras, too – public domain industrial films about the glories of beer. The inclusion of these amusing artifacts tells you a good deal about the fellows who made the movie – they’re serious about beer, yes. Serious about good beer. Serious about making good beer.

On the other hand, it’s beer, dude. Did I learn anything? No. Then again, I didn’t want to make beer, so I wouldn’t have watched an instructional film about assembling your own automobile, either. I would just go buy one. If you’re interested in beer-making, you’ll probably find the host’s low-key everyman persona a comfort. I enjoyed the extras more than any other instructional DVD I’ve ever seen, so I’ll give it a big hurrah.

Grandpa might not have liked their beer, though. It looks like that really good stuff. Grandpa, as I said, drank Grain Belt.

Reviewer: R Scott R.

Provided several good hints to handling the full carboys, which had been preventing me from trying this form of brewing. Also, Cosmo and the kids were BIG hits to the production! Heartily endorse this for good information, home-spun delivery, and breadth/scope of info provided!