From left: Bill Covalevski, Sam Calagione, Greg Koch (jnpstudiosblog.com)
(Orange County, CA) – Remember the buzz surrounding the “I am a Craft Brewer” video? There is another video coming and this one will be MUCH BIGGER.
[4/8 Update: According to Redtail Media, this will be a “high end coffee table book with a feature length DVD, documentary of all the interviews and behind the scenes of the photoshoots.”]
This has floated under the radar for two months; there is only one mention of the project by name online and it is from early February. According to Jeffrey Neal, a photographer working on the project:
“Last Wednesday I headed up to San Francisco to start shooting this project with Redtail Media called the American Craft Brewer. I can not give all the details of this project yet but trust me you will be hearing a lot about this. The basic idea is to put together a photo essay and video that tells the story of the craft brewers in America.”
Take a peak at Neal’s website. The portraits he is taking of those in the industry look excellent so far (if not, dare I say, “stunning”): Link 1, Link 2, Link 3, Link 4.
Neal started shooting in Northern California, taking shots of the folks at Russian River Brewing, Lagunitas Brewing, Sierra Nevada Brewing, 21st Amendment, Magnolia and Bear Republic. Since his initial post, Neal’s Twitter feed reveals that he’s visited The Bruery, Stone Brewing (while Sam and Bill were there making Saison du BUFF), Alesmith, Pizza Port and Ballast Point.
Sounds like more of a California craft beer video than a craft beer video, right? Well, hopefully that will change since Redtail Media was soliciting brewers for the project at the Brewers Conference today. That pic also indicates that this is going to be a multi-volume project.
The IAACB video was a huge step because it was probably the most polished video we had ever seen featuring many craft brewers. That said, the video consisted largely of scripted one-liners and short phrases. It sounds like this video is going to do a lot more storytelling. Will it turn into a full-length feature? Not necessarily but I wouldn’t be surprised if this turned into a mini-documentary. Redtail has produced a number of videos for the CraftBeer.com site and Stone Brewing. They and JNP Studios are funding the project.
Below, Peter Zien of AleSmith Brewing smashes a perfectly good bottle of AleSmith Speedway Stout for the upcoming video. The second one features Jeff Bagby(?) spraying a bottle of beer at Pizza Port Carlsbad.
Thanks for the write up guys! Jeffrey Neal is our photographer and partner in the project. (Not sure who Nelson is. Maybe Jeff’s alter ego?) Up to this point, RedTail Media and JNP Studios have funded the project. Though they’re incredibly supportive, the BA, as of now, has no official involvement. This one’s all us. We’re working on a blog to keep the updates coming, so look for that to be up and running in the next couple of weeks. Thanks again for the write up. As you can tell by Jeff’s posts, we leave every shoot/interview even more inspired than when we came in. We hope that our friends in the craft brewing community will be proud to support the book as its pages continue to be created.
Cheers,
Jared
We set up a Twitter account to use while we’re producing the book. Follow it at twitter.com/CraftBrewerBook
Cheers,
Jared
Thanks and sorry for the name debauchery. A lot of people incorrectly called me Nelson in high school, somewhat purposely as a joke. I chalk this up to trauma!