Brew Masters on Discovery w/ Sam Calagione

hahahahaha he so does sound like Keanu Reeves! that is hilarious!

 

Ok so now we have a brew show on tv, man that is great! It is good to see craft brew getting viewed by most that would not have looked at it if it were sitting beside a BMC. Also anyone notice just how fast DF has sold out of the stores now. Had to laugh at that. Just have to watch to see if prices go up.

Just a thought here and I am sure some of us have already thought it. When is there going to be a west coast brew show? How about a brew off? Yeah Discovery did it with bikes, crabs, sword fish, lobster, trees, gators, then there was that junk yard wars, I am sure I am missing something in there also.

 

Stone would be a good brewery to follow on the west coast. Pretty sure Greg Koch would make an awesome host.

 

Damn good point.

 

I always thought Charlie Papazian would be great doing an updated version of Michael Jackson's the Beer hunter. I’m going to see him tomorrow (House Small Brewers Caucus meeting) and will talk to him about it. He already sends a lot of his time traveling the world sampling other countries beers, so it would be a natural(his book microbrewed adventures is just what I was thinking)

 

here we go with the angry again... Something interesting to ponder... some people like his "gimmicky beer."

apparently, sometimes thats exactly what it =

Here is the description of the show, directly from the discovery channel:

"Join Sam Calagione, craft beer maestro and founder of Dogfish Head Brewery, as he and his partners in suds travel the world searching for exotic ingredients and discovering ancient techniques to produce beers of astounding originality."

now, can someone please explain to me how there is any confusion regarding what type of beers this show is about. Exotic ingredients.... ancient techniques... ASTOUNDING ORIGINALITY.

Im just wondering, because this isnt the first time someone has asked (insert whiney voice here) "why wont they just talk about normal brewing."

I guess to me the answer is obvious--because thats not what the show is about.

 

Is someone forcing you to watch the show?

 

Boy it would be nice if we could have a thread where those of us who actually like the show could discuss aspects of it without all the negitivity. Maybe share ideas we get from the show, or simply bask in the glory of actually having even a small piece of what all of us are insanely passionate about (Craft/home brewing) given some attention for once. I think it is a cause for celebration. Maybe we should have an "I want to actually talk about this show" thread and an "I want to bash this show" thread.

And we could all just have our own fun without ruining it for the other folks.

I'm not a big fan of his bees, and as I said, his rap annoyed me, but since I love to experiment, and love to research the cutlural aspect of brewing, and love to dig up some weired ethnic ingredienrt and brew with it, I am so happy that there's a show like this in existance. I just wish I personally could talk about the show with other like minded people without a lot of negetivity.

But this is the internet afterall

 

Yes, because minority dissent has never helped make anything better:
http://home.medewerker.uva.nl/c.k.w.dedreu/bestanden/DeDreu West JAP.pdf

 

The one thing that Disocvery shows do well is getting into the personalities of the participants. The Ultimate Catch shows and the OCC become interesting because of the people. It will be interesting to see how they play this out with DogFish.
I tricked my wife into a tour of DF a couple of weeks ago. She loved the creativity of the company including the crazy treehouse out front. She does not drink beer but thought the recipes were fun and has asked me to experiment with the brews more : ) When the show hit she got interested in watching it, that surprised me.

 

Thank you for writing this, this original post made me so angry I shut off my computer. Craft brewing and BREWING in general is what WE want it to be. It may be different, it be familiar, but its what WE put into it that makes it different and unique. It makes it ours.

Enough with the negativity we need the positive. RDWHAHB!!!!!

 

I wasnt aware of any decision we were trying to make as a team. I just want to talk about this show-- find me a study that suggests negativity improves CONVERSATION, and then youll have my attention.

oh, and there is a difference between dissent and just being flat dissrespectful.

 

Many times when there is dissent individuals view it as negative and/or disrespectful regardless of intent (and especially over the internet -- though that's a different research stream).

Point and counter point do improve conversation. Otherwise it is just a bunch of people hanging off Sam's ....


, which is far less interesting than the new show.

 

I had an employee give me his pay day case of 60 min. after seeing me do something nice at the bar for someone.

 

I think part of the problem is that he goes into these recipes, researches the ingredients, and the history behind them, brews the beer, gets people to taste it, and that's all you hear about it. There's no follow up , there's no second brewing to improve the beers, there's no talking to everyday people about the beers. I can see how he brews the beer, and has to have it ready by a certain time, but I think he should give it more time and do multiple brewings to get more of a product that more people might drink. The Bitches Brew was brewed once, as was the tamarillo and the chicha, and the resulting beer just went to a tasting and that was it. I'd like to see some follow up.

As far as all the negative comments, of course people are entitled to their opinion and that's fine, but I'd expect more people to be happy that our hobby is in the spotlight. I don't care that he's corny, and that he sounds like keanu reeves, which is not even close, or that the beers he's done so far probably won't be in the full time lineup. It's an interesting show, and it's nice to see what we do on TV.

 

I've never tried the DFH beer yet, but the show is interesting and fun to watch. Like American Chopper, they really run up against fake time-lines to create drama, but fun to watch nontheless.

Sam is living the dream; he owns his own brewery and has his own show. What more could you ask for?

 

The toilet went counter-clockwise?

 

Well, any show like this will not be successful if it appeals to only one (narrow) audience. Heck, I'd like it if they'd spend a show talking about the grain bill, mash temps, water treatment, yeast management, fermentation temperature profile, filtration etc for one of their beers. And the show would never make it on any popular media.

Likewise, they could make it like a Funniest Home Video show, and show all the bloopers/funny stuff at the plant - the bottles getting dumped, the pumpkin shooter, the employees making funny faces, the glue getting spilled. That would be a bit more popular.

Or they could go the gross-out route - the honey with bees inside, the chicha, the stink from a wild yeast. Might get a few viewers.

Or the personality route - "Sam's Celebrity Special." Or they could appeal to younger viewers with comments about partying, how rad and extreme they are, how great it is to get free beer all the time.

The trick is to make a show that combines much of that - the mass market appeal of the extreme beers, the details that interest us, the personality, family and social interaction issues that interests the soap-opera crowd, the extreme angle for the younger viewers. That makes it more popular (= not cancelled) at the expense of focus on any of those topics.

Personally, I think it's a good thing that someone has provided me with a free show about brewing. And if they have to add some soap opera aspects to attract a wide audience (which pays their bills) or let Sam C get some free advertising (which pays his bills) that's OK too. To expect it to also perform some social function like "showcasing real craft brewing" is asking a little much IMO.

 

Personally I really digg the show and I am super pissed that I missed it last night. I do not have a DVR (Not that big on TV in general) Am I jealous of Sam and what he has accomplished...eh somewhat but not really.

If I had the capital or ever do, I would make the same leap. New Belgium started in a basement as did many other Craft Breweries. Ahhh dare to dream Zman..lol I met him at Pints for Prostates during GABF week and he really is a super nice guy and very friendly. Sure he might be cheesy but he is a success story and as HB'ers we all aspire to get to that level whether it be as HB'ers or going Pro. I do not love all of their beers but I do appreciate them for what they are and what they represent to the world. Sometimes daring to dream really works.

I managed to get a few bottles of Bitches Brew. It is truly a terrific beer. Denver has an Ethiopian Market so I am going to have to try cloning it

 

I'm a bit curious about people talking about "fake timelines" on here. I work in the software field, and I have very real timelines that I need to deal with. They ring true to the timelines they work with on this show.

For the first show, Sony hired DFH to make a beer that coincided with an anniversary of a record. Is this unrealistic? Customers come to my company with short timelines all the time. Sure they should have planned ahead, but they didn't. Sam also wanted to get the beer out before a trade show. Well guess what, there are trade shows in my field too. And the management pushes us to get certain features or releases out before the trade show, so we can show them off.

All of this seemed perfectly normal to me.

 

That was me. It is difficult to watch, once you get that in your head. I am a huge Matrix fan, but not a fan of Reeves at all.

 

Easy fella, in the real world there are real timelines, but on this show and shows alike they create the drama by building in timelines that may or may not even exist. It's called creative editing; without it there is no real drama. Every week they create a beer just in time; whew they did it again.

I said I like the show, but after watching it, ice road truckers, deadliest catch, american chopper, etc. they all have drama and that's what keeps people coming back I guess. Look at Jersey Shore; there is a New Jersey and there are people, but do you think they would act the same if there were no cameras on them and no editing room to create even more drama?

 

Ya, I think Gym-Tan-Laundry (GTL), "t-shirt time", and the "smash room" would be a very important and time consuming part of their lives either way!

 

I blame Mike Rowe for the advent of all this **** televison.

 

Huh?

Right, but DFH is a real company and I'm sure they have real timelines. Are you disagreeing with this? Bitches Brew is as far as I know a real record with a real anniversary, and Savor as far as I know is a real trade show with a real date. Both of these events exist outside of the show, they weren't created especially for the show.

I can't comment on the other shows, not having seen them.

I really didn't see any drama at all in the show that I watched. I heard a guy say something along the lines of "the timeline is short", but not much else. Did they make it appear shorter then it actually was? Sure, it is TV. But I don't really see any emphasis at all put on it except "we have a short timeline".

I haven't seen any of those shows except American Chopper. I mentioned this before in the thread; these shows have nothing in common. Unless this happened in the last 2 episodes, I haven't seen Sam ram his pickup truck into a fermenter because they were behind schedule. I also haven't seen the brewmaster flip over a table because Sam yelled at him. I would associate this with "fake drama", and there is plenty of that in American Chopper. But I don't see these things in Brewmasters, so I'm not really sure where the "fake drama" comes into play.

 

I'm not really sure what the current topic is, but I really like the Brewmasters show. Lil' education, lil' human interest, lil' comedy relief. Can't beat that!

 

havent gotten to watch a episode yet but i set the dvr to record the next one

 

im pretty sure he has already taken us to other breweries around the world. and on his trips around the world he has brought back the brews and allowed people to try brews they would not have EVER tried before. i think that its a pretty good show specially how your explaining it. (if he was cloning like Arrogant bastard or some other massed produced style off beer then it would be different) but bringing rare beers from around the world to the USA that would NEVER make it here otherwise im all for it.

 

Same here.I found interesting and I'm so glad it's not about grist,strike temps,every brewery in America or homebrewing 101.That's what the internet (homebrewtalk.com) is for.

 

Maybe it's poor recollection on my part, since I haven't exactly been taking notes, but it seems like every deadline ends up being 5 weeks. Weird.

LMFAO!

 

Did I miss an episode? So far I have DVR two episodes: "Bitches Brew" and "Chicha". Now I noticed that next one is on Monday night not Sunday, titled "From Grain To Glass". Did I miss an episode last Monday night?

 

Yes, evidently it was an episode on pumpkin/tomatillo.

 

Mighty high expectations in wanting follow ups and rebrews within the first three episodes.

 

Yeah, they seem to have switched to Mondays now, although they didn't wait a week and a day, just a day

 

OMG, he does sound like Keenau Reeves!!! (Except Sam speaks in complete sentences.)

 

So pardon my ignorance but is it normal for the craft brewers to collaborate on beer formulations? I noticed in the Punkin/Portamarillo he is working with Epic and stated several other brewers that they collaborate with.

I would have thought there would be more trade secret type stuff.

 

That's actually what collaboration is, it's not using another brewer as a crutch, it's a meeting of the minds in formulating a recipe and brewing it together. Life and Limb is the collaboration between DFH and SN. No one hides a collaboration, it anything it's a selling point. It's kind of a bring another brewer to work day.

 

I would think that there is more collaboration between craft breweries, especially if they aren't in each others back yard. Sam said in one episode that there are over 1,500 small breweries in the US, but they only make up 5% of sales. Collaboration can only strengthen their existance and popularity and TV shows like this don't hurt either.

 

It actually is a pretty common thing. Sierra Nevada, Stone, 3 Floyds, Avery, Russian River, Mikkeller, Brew Dog, Brooklyn, Ommegang, and Flying Fish are just a few big breweries who have worked on beers with other breweries. And Super Friends! is supposed to be fantastic, that was put out by 6 different breweries working together. It's one of the cool things about craft breweries... a lot of them are more about good beer regardless of who makes it then they are about competing with each other.

 

I'm not debating what the show format, but rather what the show is making craft beer look like to those that are not already familiar with it. Way to miss the entire point guy. I'm not bitching about the show, but rather concerned what this will do to the over all perception of craft beer outside brewers (AKA craft = crazy ingredients). Just wait there will be a mountain oyster stout, just wait.