The documentary features some of the biggest names in small brewing, including Sam Calagione of Dogfish Head in Delaware, Greg Koch of Stone Brewing in California, and Jim Koch of Boston Beer.
These are people who revolutionized beer around the world, both with inventive, unusual styles and with unique entrepreneurial prowess.
"It was a world I didn't really know much about," Baron said of craft brewing. Her own background was in mainstream beer marketing, as a manager of Mike's Hard Lemonade. "Then I met all these craft brewers doing all these crazy, kooky things . . . "
But Baron cautioned that "Beer Wars" is not a big, wet kiss to the offbeat world of microbrewing. Instead, her documentary focuses on that dreaded three-tier system, a post-Prohibition requirement that brewers use a middleman, or wholesaler, to distribute beer to retailers.
I know what your thinking: Zzzzzz . . .
But wait - it's a topic that's just ripe for a Michael Moore-like takedown.
On one side, you've got beer barons mass-producing an inferior product, scheming to grab every inch of supermarket shelf space. On the other, little start-ups run by struggling American craftsmen who make pure, all-malt goodness.
Rhonda Kallman, who is founder and CEO of one of those start-ups, New Century Brewing Co., calls it "hand-to-hand combat."
The battle is fought hardest among the towering stacks of kegs and cases at wholesalers.
"The political power of the National Beer Wholesalers Association is pretty incredible," Baron told me. "Their PAC in 2006 contributed more than guns and tobacco. You've got to ask yourself, 'What are they trying to protect?' "
Surely they're not worried about tiny craft brewers. The segment represents a mere 5 percent of the beer industry.
