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DREW: The one I'm brewing today, the last batch of it,

is probably the closest I've ever come [CHUCKLES]

to being satisfied with a beer.

But that just makes the process more fun,

when I have laurels to rest on.

What the heck am I gonna do with all my time?

All right.

[SIGHS]

This is not proper brewing technique.

This is brew technique.

So I'm gonna take my sack of grain,

I'm gonna take my string.

I'm literally just gonna plop it on in there for a swim.

There's just nothing it can hide behind,

nothing you can hide those off flavors behind.

There's a lot of precision that you can put into it if you want to.

And me, being type-A, I wanna put it all in there.

Oh, the waiting is the hardest part. [EXHALES]

Tom Petty knows what's up.

[FUNKY MUSIC PLAYING]

In the last year,

there have been four new breweries opening, every business day.

GARRETT: If you can't put that beer out,

tasting essentially the same every time,

that doesn't mean you're a craft brewer, it means, you can't brew.

There's over 10,000 wineries in the US.

Why can't there be 10, 15, 20,000 breweries?

[PEOPLE CHEERING]

MAN: Be that taste of home.

You know when you come here, right? It's your taste of home.

We're reaching the level of complexity where people know they've got options.

People don't like to talk about it, but there's a bubble,

you know, and bubbles burst.

HOLL: US brewers are really fearless,

and they're willing to try anything.

Brewers, in general, there's a lot of things that are similar,

just as many as there's really different.

Biggest thing they all have in common is facial hair.

RANDY: I like the way it smells, I like the way it looks,

I like the way it tastes.

I like the way it makes me feel.

HOLL: ...and they have been homebrewers who went pro,

uh, because they wanted to follow their dreams.

First time I ever had a beer? All right.

Um, oh, blimey.

The first beer I ever put in my mouth was St. Pauli Girl.

Some sips off of my father's Black Label.

Of course, I was 21 when I had my first beer.

I mean, let's get that straight.

My first beer was Old Milwaukee,

and I stole it out of my grandfather's fridge.

My first beer, most likely, was not stolen out of my dad's cooler,

it was probably stolen out of my next door neighbor's cooler, you know,

like me hopping the fence,

you know, pulling a couple of, uh--

pulling a couple of Schlitz out of their cooler,

and then going and drinking with my friend in my backyard.

I remember going down with my buddy, Chris Meth, in the cellar,

with my mom's chopping board, a quarter, a glass,

stealing his musette and playing quarters,

and feeling like I saw the gods.

My parents were very strict,

and they made me wait for my first beer until I was four.

And I gave it a little sip, and then I didn't try beer again for, like, ten years.

I was being a nuisance at a dinner party,

and they handed me a little sip of a Genesee Cream Ale

before sending me off to bed.

I was probably a whiny little brat,

and Dad was sick and tired of me,

and at the end of this long day, he's sitting with a bottle, he's like, "Here, drink this."

[LAUGHING]

I remember wanting to spit it out

and wondering why anybody every drank that stuff.

I remember I drank it and it tasted robust,

and hoppy and bitter, I was like,

"Ooh, I don't know."

I take a big swig of it, and I was like... [SPITS]

[LAUGHS]

I head back to them, I'm like, "Oh, my God, you drink that?"

What do you need? Onion? You need sage?

I have sage, I have onion.

[BABY BABBLING]

Daddy's cooking dinner.

-Daddy's getting done already. -I'll do it with you.

BRIAN: I'm Brian Reed.

I'm a trade brewer with Tenth and Blake.

I live in Milwaukee, but I'm from Pittsburgh.

You know, beer's always been something that's kinda been around.

My dad is someone who's always enjoyed

kind of experimenting with different beers going out

and kinda hunting stuff down.

So when, you know, I was approaching legal drinking age,

naturally, that curiosity kinda went in that direction.

And I started homebrewing when I was about 19.

I guess I always got more and more involved in homebrewing.

I became a beer judge-- a judge of beer competitions.

You know, I went to college, finished college.

I, you know, majored in something completely different,

and then started kinda poking around,

trying to find a way into the beer business,

'cause I knew that that's what I wanted to do.

I spent almost three years right out of college in 2008,

when the job market was trash.

I got a job in a call center,

and I did customer service for a cell phone provider.

And it was the most soul-sucking, miserable job in the world,

and I did it for three years.

And I was going to a night shift one day,

and I was sitting and having lunch at a bar

that was, you know, served a lot of good beers.

I was talking to the owner who I knew.

And I was like, "If I go in today and put in my two weeks notice,

will you give me a bartending job?

'Cause I'm gonna apply [CHUCKLES] to grad school."

And he was like, "Yeah, sure. Absolutely."

So, then I kinda focused on beer moving forward.

I was lucky enough to get a job as a...

kind of a consulting capacity with a start-up brewery,

which turned into a brewery job,

which eventually turned into a head of brewing operations job.

I teach people about beer.

I help them to build their confidence

in talking about beer and tasting beer,

and expressing the things that they are experiencing and enjoying,

and we kinda help them to do that.

DREW: This is like my redwell.

I don't even know what's in it.

Probably like files on my loans and stuff.

How to get a retail liquor license.

There you go. That's legal for you.

But, again, everything I did, every focus kind of was,

"How do I turn this into beer?

How do I take that next step to get from where I am to where I wanna be?

How do I dig myself out of the hole and the enormous amount of debt?"

My name is Drew Kostic. I live in Brooklyn, New York,

and I'm currently a clerk to a federal judge.

I graduated from undergrad from Colgate University in 2008.

Homebrewing came into play, my junior year.

We were leaving our townhouse which was a wreck, of course,

because it was a group of 16 dudes living in it.

And one of my friends, my roommate, in fact,

had left what's called a Mister Beer Kit.

It's basically like a cheap make-your-own-beer kit

you can get at Bed Bath & Beyond.

And he left it behind, I said, "Why the heck not? Let's do it."

Dug right in, brewed some, what I considered some terrible beer.

I actually put it in the screw top plastic bottles

and all the carbonation evaporated,

so it basically came out like a honey-- honey wine,

almost like an uncarbonated mead.

Uh, but I was hooked. I was in.

Left to move to Poland for a year,

and that was where I met the Barts.

Uh, two Flemish Belgians who I lived with.

So they bring this duvel I never had before,

and I watched these two get into a full-on shouting match

about the proper way to pour it,

not even whether it's right duvel, not even the glassware,

but how to properly pour it and what angle it's poured at,

and I thought, "There's something to this."

As I moved throughout Europe and tasted that beer,

I found there's more to brewing than what I'm just doing in my kitchen.

There's more to this culture.

And this happened, of course, this is happening 2008, 2009,

as the brewery movement is just rapidly, rapidly evolving over here in the States.

And I just kinda came at the right time, I guess.

RAY: One other country brewer. It sounds too important, too.

I got involved in the beer community first as a drinker, obviously.

Been a beer-drinking for a long, long time.

And I started homebrewing in 1989.

Making home brew led me to start writing about homebrew,

led me to start organizing events around beer and homebrewing.

And so, I took over Brewers Publications,

and fairly quickly published the most successful title they ever had,

How To Brew by John Palmer.

From that perch,

I basically was surveying all of beer knowledge,

from beginning homebrew all the way through advanced professional brewing.

And it was in that period, when I was transitioning out of the brewing association

that the cicerone concept came to me.

Anybody who's been involved in food and beverage,

has looked at fine wine,

who's familiar with a sommelier for wine,

you know, who's had the idea,

"Oh, maybe we should have a sommelier for beer, right?"

For the people who are excited about beer,

passionate about beer, wanna make beer as a career,

it's a little bit of a beacon of light for them

in terms of having a way to say,

"I'm not just a drunk who decided to, you know,

spend his life around beer all the time so he could drink." Right?

There's actually a professional component to this,

there's actually a knowledge that you have to know that's specific.

And it's actually hard to pass the exam, and I've done that.

And so, I think people take great pride in that.

We have 75,000 certified beer servers,

other 2,500 certified cicerones,

and there are 11 masters.

So, when I started, I thought maybe it'd be like a pyramid,

a triangle kinda thing.

Turns out it's more like a Hershey's Kiss.

[LAUGHING]

It's a very sharp-- very sharp peak at the top there

in terms of, you know, the number of folks who are making it to master.

DREW: I took a position at a large law firm, here in New York,

um, I think something 200 attorneys worldwide,

700 in New York alone.

Was there for a year, moved to a smaller law firm,

which was only about 70 attorneys total.

And since then, I've transitioned into clerking.

Clerking is a wonderful opportunity for a lawyer

to spend a year or two years working with a judge

either at a federal or state level.

I took the position that pays far less

than a private practicing attorney position for the hours,

to be able to do beer school on the side,

to be able to brew frequently on the weekends,

to bring that day down from a 10 to 16-hour work day, seven days a week

to a 40-hour work week, five days a week.

It's something I could manage,

something I could really devote time to beer as my second job.

We have it right there.

JASON: My name is Jason Pratt.

I'm the manager of beer education of MilerCoors,

and my relationship to beer is a long, twisted one, I guess,

but it really is something that defines a lot of the things I do right now.

It's a passion point for me.

I recently just found out that I have passed theMaster Cicerone exam,

so I'm one of 11 master cicerones in the world.

So that's something that I take a lot of pride in.

One of the biggest things for me is that Brian is taking theMaster Cicerone exam

at the end of October.

So I'm gonna do everything I can from now until then

to make sure that I'm giving just all the help and support that I can,

any resources that we have available to us

to help him get there.

BRIAN: For me, it started out as,

you know, "I wanna be a beer educator for a living,

so I should probably spend some earnest time learning about beer."

And then it kinda started me down that path.

And after achieving, like, certified level and things like that,

uh, just being, I think, probably a naturally,

you know, competitive person, probably with a little bit of chip on his shoulder,

I said, you know, "I wanna go for master level."

I took it the first time really prepared,

you know, mostly on my own.

Came up just perilously short.

So it's almost worse than failing it by landslide.

And I'm studying to take the master exam in October, so we'll see.

AUTOMATED VOICE SPEAKING: Base malts usually represent

the majority of the grest for grain bill.

They have enough distatic power to convert their own starches

and some starch from unmalted grain.

Distatic power of about 140 degrees lintner.

It has a mild flavor that has a slightly grainy, honeyed flavor characteristic.

DREW: Right now, I am a graduate student at Auburn University,

and what my class is, it's the Auburn Graduate Certificate Program

in brewing science and brewing operations.

While based at Auburn, it's a distance learning program

that you can do while fully employed.

It's actually the first of its nature in the United States.

It's only one of two graduate programs in the United States

for brewing,

and with the intention of presenting somebody

for the brewing operations business.

So, the rest of the year, short term,

maintain my intense focus on getting my class work done.

I mean, I want 100 on everything.

This isn't some, you know, joke class in college,

or a side prerequisite I have to take.

This is my life. This is what I want for my career.

This is what I want to satisfy every yearning inside of me.

And so, my goal is to be the perfect student that I can.

Short term, additionally, find an internship in the area

for part-time,

I think it's between 10 and 12 hours a week,

for my practicum aspect of it this summer,

which, again, you know, you can't get tired when you're doing what you love,

so I'm not too worried about having to focus to do 6:00 a.m. brewing sessions

or 8:00 p.m. brewing sessions.

And the long term focus is to make Drew's Brews,

a functioning, operating brewery.

[LIVELY PIANO MUSIC PLAYING]

The big things that have happened, you know, in American brewing,

you had the movement in the 1800s

of what was essentially a cottage industry,

that was virtually, in many cases,

on an almost homebrewing sort of level,

to really becoming business.

And you had, yes, you had small businesses.

Also, one of the biggest things was the wave of German immigration

into United States who brought in lager brewing.

And we got that more, sort of, variegated beer culture.

If you were in a place like New York City in, say, 1880, 1890,

what you would have seen was the most diverse beer culture

on the face of the Earth.

So, we had everything.

What happened is that we had 4,000 breweries in the United States,

and we had tremendous diversity,

and then, the matrix, which is modern food-making,

squeezed everything down to a narrow channel.

And the idea is that we're going to apply technology,

we also had the extra impetus of prohibition.

On the other side of prohibition, 13 years,

but the most monumental 13 years you can imagine.

NEWSCASTER: The lid is off in many places

with the downfall of prohibition

being celebrated in real, old-time high alert.

Yes, and by the renewal of all acquaintances,

hotels and night clubs

record a real prewar spirit among those revelers.

So you come out the other end in 1933,

and suddenly, you have radio networks

and trucks, and a developed road system.

And for the first time, you have true mass communication

across the entire United States

and the ability to bring you the product.

And these two things together

start this process where they say, "Wait a minute.

If we can actually cancel the past

in the matrix, we make you forget the reality."

You know, "You don't remember what tasty wheat tasted like.

And now, we're gonna tell you,

and we're gonna tell you there was only ever this one thing.

And now we can sell it to you,

and we can deliver it to you and we can advertise it to you

all day, forever.

And then we have all the money."

Right. So, is everybody familiar with kinda how this works?

-MAN: No. -Okay.

Uh, what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna pour eight beers into glasses for you.

We can set them up sample one through eight.

Beer number one.

The Master Cicerone exam takes place over two days.

It's about ten hours.

They're going to answer 10 to 12 in-depth essay questions,

participate in 12 different oral examinations.

They're going to undertake eight different tasting exam panels.

We expect a master cicerone

to have the technical skills and knowledge

to be considered a professional peer, a master brewer.

We also expect that master cicerone

to have the ability to speak with consumers

at a level that consumers can understand and relate to.

You need to be very knowledgeable about beers,

beer style, beer-tasting, off flavors,

brewing, draft systems, beer and food.

RAY: The fact that it's hard to be a part of the group,

of that elite group that can call themselves a master cicerone...

[INDISTINCT CHATTER]

The goal for me is the goal that's been there since the day...

My second year of law school I figured out I didn't wanna be a lawyer anymore.

And that is to continue down the path one more step,

and if I make that next step and it goes right,

I'm going to continue on the next step.

I'm cutting right down to it.

I've got two goals here.

I need to both, finish the business plan as the founder of Drew's Brews,

and really coalesce it into something

that is absolutely proper to hand to an investor.

And the reason why that's important,

is 'cause I'm planning on handing it to somebody.

I found somebody who is interested in at least hearing the pitch,

at least seeing the business plan.

On the flip side, I'm playing student.

I need to get an internship.

So I need to both, be a lawyer for the federal judiciary, [LAUGHS]

and an intern, cleaning kegs and barrels.

And then, on top of it, be the founder of a company,

be a start-up entrepreneur, for lack of a better word,

and convincing that investor that what I have is what they want.

And I need this to be the real deal

because this could be make-or-break for the rest of my life.

♪ When you say "Bud"

♪ You've said a lot of things Nobody else can say ♪

♪ When you say "Bud"

♪ You've gone as far as you Can go to get the very best ♪

I think we need to step back 30, 40 years ago,

when the whole new-age beer revolution started in the US.

That's when all the big global players started coming in,

producing "golden lagers"

with very little taste, a lot of CO2.

Basically produced to be only refreshing.

The whole marketing campaigns,

where the folks sing more about what's behind the beer

rather than what's in the glass.

♪ My beer is Rheingold The dry beer ♪

♪ Rocky mountain high

♪ Make it yours Make it Coors ♪

♪ Make it yours

♪ Schmidt's One beautiful beer ♪

Schmidt's, you're beautiful.

ANNOUNCER: Lite beer for Miller.

Everything you always wanted in a beer. And less.

ANNOUNCER: Just tell 'em, "Gimme a Dixie."

They often have a tagline

that kind of explains what they want you to be thought of.

You know, a lot of people think Billy and I argue all the time.

Actually, we agree on just about everything. Right, Bill?

You bet you, George.

We even drink the same beer. Lite beer for Miller.

Excuse me.

I'm not the same crazy coach who used to storm around the sidelines,

yelling at the officials,

I have learned to relax,

and I drink Lite beer for Miller.

No wonder you don't get no respect.

I tell you, I don't deserve no respect.

♪ When you say Budweiser ♪

♪ You've said it all

HOLL: In the US, in the mid-1970s,

beer was a large, mass-produced food item

that had no, you know,

didn't have a bunch of flavor to it.

It had talent behind it, certainly,

but there wasn't a lot of inventiveness that was happening.

And there's a guy named Jack McAuliffe

who was a naval engineer,

worked at US subs over in the UK, toured around the globe.

JIM: England had a homebrewing tradition, and so exposed to that,

decided to start a brewery in Sonoma, California,

and make a pale ale.

HOLL: He found old dairy equipment,

old stainless steel, cobbled it together,

welded it together, and created a brewery,

got a brewery license,

and started brewing about four barrels of beer at a time.

His beer was called New Albion,

and it was the defining American craft ale.

And where he was in California, he attracted a lot of attention.

The Washington Post came out, The New York Times came out.

Educators from University of California, Davis,

that has a brewing school, came out,

saw what Jack was doing and realized

that they had to change their curriculum, 'cause up until that point,

they were basically training brewers

to go work in large commercial breweries around the world.

And now they realized that you could have these small breweries

that are no bigger than this apartment right here

where people could actually, uh, make beer.

He was in business for eight years before he went bankrupt.

But he at least demonstrated that, "Hey, you can start a brewery."

Which was a weird idea.

Homebrewing was legalized by Jimmy Carter in 1976.

I guess after prohibition, they had, sort of,

forgotten about legalizing it along with legalizing home wine-making.

Then the flood gates were open,

and people started providing information and support for brewers and clubs,

and so you started to see these little communities nucleate

around the homebrewing shops.

It's kind of the... the place where all the people revolved around,

and it was really the beginning of all of the communities

that eventually turned into craft beer.

Are we stacking these? Are we going for like, the cool disheveled look?

-Like, "I woke out of bed." -Like I don't even care.

I made my hair look like this. [LAUGHS]

[IN HIGH-PITCHED VOICE] I woke up like this.

[CHUCKLING]

BRIAN: The smooth pour, the mliko pour.

So the crisp pour, more gas, intentionally,

and the side pour faucet allows you to control the amount of gas

that stays in the solution.

So, when you open it wide open and it's pouring bright beer,

and you pour that from the beginning to the top,

and then you pour a foam on top,

you have all this beer below it that is chock-full of gas.

It's a different beer.

It's a different beer for a different occasion.

Uh, we've got seven courses for you guys tonight,

and, uh, so it's a full beer dinner that we're doing here.

So what we have is a polenta.

that's gonna compliment the inherent malt sweetness of this beer.

So this German pilsner, it's got that hop character to it.

It's dry, it's got a lingering bitterness

that's gonna cut through any type of richness

from that kinda unctuous, uh, chicken broth.

[INDISTINCT CHATTER]

JASON: I would say that The Great American Beer Festival,

is kinda like the Super Bowl, I guess, in the brewing industry every year.

People come in, your beers are judged.

It's a competition, but at the same time,

it's just a celebration of all things beer.

BRIAN: When people say, "What do you do?"

I hesitate to tell them flat out

that I drink and talk about beer for a living,

because it sounds a little ridiculous,

and I, you know,

it sounds like kind of a humble brag, I guess.

But, like, really, that's a huge part of what you do,

is talk to people about beer.

Like, get them excited about beer.

I went to college for geology. I love science.

I didn't know what I wanted to do when I got out of college.

I called a buddy I knew and said,

"I need a job. I'll do anything.

Just something to tide me over while I apply to grad school."

Uh, and he said, "Well, I'm working at this little local brewery,

and my boss today just said we needed a keg washer part-time."

It was the first time I'd seen a trade or a business or an occupation

that combined everything that I wanted to have in a career.

So that was science, of course.

Right when you walk into a brewery,

you see there's a big science component to brewing beer.

A mechanical side.

I love working with my hands, and there was pipes everywhere and electrical stuff.

And then the art side of it.

There's, of course, a big creative component to making beer,

with recipe formulations.

And I saw, just in two days of working there,

I was immediately in love with it.

So I moved over here and I started in this space here,

but just try to keep it extremely simple,

and just brewed one beer, Allagash White, draft only,

just for the local market.

Really, for the first few years, even in those accounts,

that were willing to take a chance on us.

I was lucky they were loyal to us, 'cause the beer didn't sell.

I got started in beer by being born, [CHUCKLES SOFTLY]

uh, because I was born to a family of brewers.

As the sixth oldest son in a row,

destined to become a brewer.

I grew up in Cincinnati, which, when I was growing up,

had one of the best beer cultures in the United States.

I was lucky when I started

because, uh, I had a couple advantages.

I didn't really have any money,

um, and nobody wanted my beer.

So, I didn't really overthink it.

I just said, "Okay, I'm gonna...

First, I'm gonna make the beer."

I need a recipe. My dad took me up in the attic.

He gave me these yellowed sheets

that had the family recipe from the Louis Koch Brewery.

I started making it at home,

'cause I'd homebrewed, I knew how to make beer.

And then I scaled it up by finding existing brewery

that had traditional equipment that would allow me to come in

and make my beer.

So I thought, "Okay, now I've got this beer."

At the time, I didn't have enough money for six packs.

All I had were loose cases of beer,

so I couldn't sell in stores of any kind,

I could only sell to bars and restaurants.

Um, but, you know, that was what it was.

So, uh, and there were five beer distributors in Boston.

They all turned me down.

And I thought, "Well, I don't have a choice.

I'm gonna go from bar to bar with my beer,

and I'm gonna get people to taste it,

and somebody's gonna take it."

VACLAV: I'm brewmaster of Pilsner Urquell Beer.

I'm lucky man,

uh, because I was born in the city

where was born the beer,

uh, which gives to the world name for beer, "Pilsner."

My father, in third generation,

lots of Berka boys here as well.

And I visited old department with him,

and I trained, of course, uh, every single...

what is necessary to do for brewing a good beer.

And it led to this, on the end of this practice,

I was able to brew my private brew of Pilsner Urquell.

GARRETT: I am from, originally, Queens, New York,

but I've been a Brooklynite for a great many years.

We drank beer in college,

but the sort of secret was we didn't like it.

We didn't actually like it.

It was just there, like everything else,

like Kamikazes, and, uh, and White Russians.

It was just another thing that you could drink.

And to tell you the truth,

we drank... we drank Budweiser when he had money.

I didn't really start thinking about beer differently until I got to England.

I'm like, "I'm going to the pub."

And I discovered that beer could be beautiful.

And it was a complete revelation.

And homebrewing was, at first, a necessity.

It was the only way to get the beer that I wanted to drink.

And I wasn't actually interested in doing it.

And then I kind of fell in love with the process,

and the camaraderie,

and the clubs that would grow up around it.

And at the time, I had a job,

and it was a well-payed cushy job.

You know, I was actually working in a law office at that point.

When I took the job at Manhattan Brewing Company,

my income fell by 75%,

and I was in a room full of boiling liquid in the middle of July

with no air conditioning.

[CHUCKLES] And I was in there saying to myself,

"I have a degree, and I was being paid really well.

I was saving money.

And now, I'm a plumber."

I'm not even a good plumber who's being paid well,

like, I'm a dog's buddy plumber.

Um, "What have I done?"

And I think that everybody probably has that moment that you have to recover from.

I'm sure it's the same for every professional chef.

It's like you're gonna end up in the kitchen, and it's, you know, [LAUGHS]

it's a ghastly place.

You better fall in love with it.

[MACHINE HISSING]

DREW: All right.

[INDISTINCT CONVERSATION]

-Hey, guys. -Hey.

-Here to work. -Cool.

So it's a little nerve-wracking starting any first job, internship,

showing up as the new guy anywhere,

but, you know, within the first 15 minutes,

I got back to what I know I do best,

which is cleaning stuff. [LAUGHS]

Which is exactly what I was told,

"If you wanna brew, this is what you gotta do."

So, uh, it's a pleasant surprise to see that it's right in line with what I was hoping for.

This pump spins this direction and starts on this side.

That's straight-up science. That makes total sense.

So you can look at any pump and tell what way it's supposed to...

That's super awesome.

Dropped the gaskets.

Oh, yeah, I gave you the tricky one.

So, because this pump is huge, it's really heavy and it's hard to line up.

-So that's how it goes. -I was just watching him, if that's all right.

-No, that's all right. -[BOTH CHUCKLE]

I mean, if anything, I will...

This would jog my memory more than anything else.

I probably won't be able to remember the silly laws

and regulations that I was talking about yesterday,

but I certainly will remember this.

[FUNKY MUSIC PLAYING]

I knew I wanted to have my own business,

but I didn't know what I wanted it to be.

And that's when I discovered beer.

It was everything that I was looking for.

When I graduated college,

I immediately got a job at the local homebrew shop

because I just wanted to make beer.

And it was, you know, I made $5 an hour.

Once I could afford a car, that's it, I moved to Vermont.

I wanted to work for Greg Noonan,

who owned the Vermont Pub and Brewery up in Burlington.

He was a very well-known pioneer in the craft beer industry.

I introduced myself to him and said,

"Everything I own is in that car. I wanna work for you.

I want you to teach me how to make beer, and I'll do whatever job you give me

if I can do that."

So he made me a waiter, and I waited tables for a year, and worked for free

on my days off in the brewery

until he made me the head brewer at the Vermont Pub and Brewery.

I was 24. That's where Jen and I met.

She was into beer, she was into the restaurant business.

She was very driven as well,

and we were just a perfect match.

We packed up the car and we just drove to Jackson.

There was a local brewery that was looking for a brewer, and I got that job.

They were called Otto Brothers Brewing in Wilson, Wyoming.

So I redesigned all of their beers,

created these recipes,

set up the brewery, got it all up and running.

Jen was also working for them setting up a restaurant.

So we were going to school.

We're getting paid to do what we wanted to do someday,

so it was an amazing experience.

But, so we quickly realized that we gotta get out of here,

because you're either here for a couple of years or you're here.

And, so that was it.

We decided we're going back to Vermont.

Constantly, if we went out, we were looking at restaurants.

We're thinking about what they did,

what they did right, what they did wrong,

all the while writing our plan, refining our plan, saving money, more than anything,

until we found the exact, perfect place for our pub,

and then we just went for it.

And when we opened that pub, we had 50 bucks in our account.

We were broker than broke.

And if we weren't busy, that was it, we were done.

I grew up in Western Massachusetts,

a little town called Greenfield, Massachusetts.

I went to high school that was a boarding school called Northfield Mount Hermon.

I grew up down the road from it.

So after Northfield Mount Hermon,

I went to Muhlenberg College down at Pennsylvania,

a little division-three school.

And the day after I graduate, I moved to New York City,

and then that coincided in the moment that I started homebrewing.

We were running a house in 26th and 7th.

My roommates were a bunch of actors at the time,

and I was in their apartment that night when I first put my homebrew on the coffee table.

It was a pale ale, and on my way home from the homebrew store,

there were some kind of rotting cherries at a bodega.

I was like, "Fuck, I'll buy those, add them, too."

Squished them into the beer, three weeks later, I premiered it.

It tasted really, really good.

I stood up on my coffee table and said,

"This is what I'm gonna do with my life."

But my next two batches sucked.

Then I would work at night, wake up hungover the next day,

walk to the New York City Library,

and while doing that research

is when I came across the term"Reinheitsgebot,"

which is the Bavarian beer purity act of 1516,

mandated that beer can only be made with water, hops and barley.

And that's when I said, "Okay, that's what I want

Dogfish to stand for and against."

Initially, it was my folks put in, I think, 25 grand.

My orthodontist put in, I think, 35 or 50.

And then, a guy built a stone wall for us, Andrew.

uh, put in, I think, 50.

It was successful from the get-go.

'95 we opened, we were in the black within one year.

And then, so, '96 or '97, two years into it,

we opened a separate production facility

maybe four miles away form the beach where land was a lot cheaper,

so that it could grow.

The moment we opened our production brewery

coincided with that first shakeout era of craft beer.

All right, time to start the brew day.

[SIGHS]

The whole room, you're gonna get a sweet barley smell

throughout the entire mashing process.

While I'm doing that, I'm gonna start setting up my hops.

There's something oddly satisfying about putting your thermometer

through each portion of the work,

and every single reading coming out at 152.1, .2.

[EXHALES] The nerd in me has never been so satisfied.

I love the creative process, I love working with my hands.

Classically, there's just four ingredients,

water, malted barley, hops and yeast,

that you can combine in endless combinations

to produce really an infinite number of flavors.

Beer is, the idea comes first,

and it's in your head,

and then, you create out of the things that you gather from elsewhere.

So brewing is much more like music.

And in that, I always like to say that it is much more human.

KIMMICH: I love the smell, the process of making it and creating it,

and the artistic freedom.

SAM: Beer is liquid food.

There's no reason you can't be as limitless and dynamic

with your recipe and choices on a beer recipe,

as you would for an entree on a plate.

RAY: Well, any artist, you know, you need to play with your materials.

You need to do things that don't have as their focus

a polished, fine, finished product,

but more something you're kinda messing around with

to see how it will turn out.

Every time you do this,

you learn something a little bit different, a little better.

Putting ingredients together

and just sort of transform into something,

there's just sort of a magical thing to it.

The whole goal here is that, a huge part of the Cicerone exam,

or the Master Cicerone exam, in particular,

is about describing flavor.

This gives you a chance to describe flavors

in a setting that's a little bit abnormal,

a little bit outside of beer.

[CHUCKLING] We're gonna have some fun with some of these BeanBoozled jelly beans.

Monday is either toothpaste or berry blue.

Tuesday is going to be either barf or peach.

If you can't have a little fun with this stuff, then what are you doing it for?

A huge part of the exams coming up

is gonna be just being able to understand or diagnose the flavor of anything,

whatever it is.

So, um, [CHUCKLING] what we're gonna do

is actually have you guys taste some jelly beans, all right?

Try to figure out what flavor of jelly bean you're dealing with,

um, and at the end, we'll kind talk about what jelly beans are which

and go from there.

I...

-Oh. -[JASON LAUGHING]

Oh, it's defining--

Hey, it's describing flavor, man.

I don't know, it's gross.

It tastes like garbage.

-Garbage, sulfur... God. -[JASON CHUCKLING]

JASON: Ready?

All right. Here we go.

So let's start with Sunday.

-Yeah, yeah. -What'd you get for that?

I said pear, perfumy floral palm fruit.

Okay. Okay, Thursday.

I said burnt popcorn,

toasted sesame, sesame oil, toasted peanut.

WOMAN: Mine was like chocolate with milky... It was kinda creamy.

So you got chocolate pudding.

[LAUGHS] That's what it was like.

[LAUGHING] You got one.

BRIAN: You're a real asshole.

[LAUGHING]

It was canned dog food.

[WOMAN LAUGHING]

Okay, and then, finally, Saturday.

Um, I said bright tropical fruit, coconut, pineapple, pina colada, suntan lotion.

[BOTH LAUGHING]

-Yeah, that's pineapple. -Cool.

I swear I thought I had coconut.

I think that's a...

I think it was the suntan lotion.

Yeah, there's a pina colada jelly bean, too, I think.

But yeah, this was...

Yeah, it was like crushed pineapple or something like that.

DREW: Brewdies are the local south Brooklyn homebrew club

that we meet at a local bar around here.

So the beer I'm bringing with me

is gonna be cucumber mint pilsner.

Is this from the barrel over at Greenpoint?

MAN: Yes.

Ah, this is the one that you guys pulled up?

Oh, cool. I'm excited to try that.

-But then, nobody here put in... -No?

-Well, I did, but I competed... -MAN 2: You're fine.

The worst error. The worst.

I put in, like, four gallons instead of five.

[INDISTINCT CHATTER]

I had nightmares for months afterwards.

MAN 3: You want me to try your beers?

Yeah, I guess so. Yeah. I think we're all ready.

[INDISTINCT CHATTER]

DREW: Yeah, you don't want too much, you know.

Um, what's the base mint?

Um, it's a pilsner.

So that's the biggest problem,

is I can't hide anything behind a pilsner, you know?

I think some dry mint or something like...

-Oh, that's interesting. -Something like that,

like, you'll still get a ton of mint character without a lot of the green mint.

Yeah, because it's been dried out. Ah, I wonder.

It's kind of overwhelming.

-Yeah, it's just too much. -So, if you scale better...

I'm gonna have to, and this is the thing,

I wanted to add all these all in at once,

but I think you're right.

I'm gonna have to just brew five gallons

and do five one-gallon batches of it

and just kind of figure out what the heck's going on.

All right, I gotta wake up real early tomorrow.

Start doing some homework.

-Good seeing you. -Cheers, Brice.

-Appreciate it. -MAN: That's your name?

[LAUGHING]

Yeah, cheers. Thank you, guys. Much appreciated.

The problem is the cucumber just came in so incredibly strong.

What a lot of people don't realize is that brewing lagers,

actually is significantly more difficult than brewing ales

and also takes significantly more time.

Every good brewer loves a great pilsner.

VACLAV: Yeah, in the place,

when was born this beer, in this year, 1842,

and it was about 260 families

who founded this brewery.

And they invited from Germany, uh, a young brewmaster, Josef Groll.

And Josef Groll combined these three ingredients together

and it led to this nice golden color

and a little bit caramel aroma of Pilsner Urquell.

And Josef Groll opened the barrel and showed the result,

and the beer was clear gold with nice head.

After first sip,

they recognized that this is gift from God.

Pilsner was like the killer app [LAUGHS] of its time.

Uh, it, you know, raced across, you know, Europe

uh, like wildfire.

When people saw for the first time a beer that was clear,

uh, and golden, rather than dark and murky,

people lost their minds.

They were like, "We've never seen anything that beautiful

in our entire lives."

And the thing was over.

Right then and there.

It's like, "That's the one we want."

It looks like gold.

Pilsner's an interesting category

'cause we've seen a lot of activity in that in the craft sector for the last year.

Uh, so it seems to be having a bit of a resurgence.

It seems like pilsner's having its time,

um, which is ironic

because for so many craft brewers, going back to that first and second wave,

lagers and pilsners were the opposite of craft beer.

Craft brewers who needed to make beers faster and cheaper,

but also wanted more flavor and experimentation started making ales.

I think pilsner was underrepresented

in the formation of craft beer for a couple of reasons.

Um, number one, the equipment cost

and the attention to process probably was lacking

in some people that were looking to build a rudimentary brewery

and get high flavor.

You hear a lot of, you know, "I only drink craft, I don't drink crap."

And they're trying to imply that those mass-produced light lagers

or American adjunct lagers is inferior.

And nothing could be further from the truth.

Those are technically perfect beers.

Those are beers where tens of millions of barrels

of the same beer is brewed every year

at multiple locations around the country,

and they all taste exactly the same.

That is a huge scientific achievement.

We now have these factors that make it possible to make lager.

Uh, and so people are looking at lager and pilsner as like,

"Well, maybe it's not such a political thing.

Maybe it was a matter of constraints [LAUGHS] that I couldn't make those.

Maybe I'm actually interested in those beers now that I can make them."

DREW: We're here in the lower east side

to kinda cut through and explore some of the bars here.

DREW: Kids.

Oh, hey there, Jeremy. It's good seeing you. How are you guys?

Good to see you around here.

DREW: Interboro.

Is that the one that the gals had?

MAN: Where is Interboro?

It's out in Bushwick.

I mean, the scene's running.

It's going nuts, obviously, here in New York.

We've got so many different breweries coming out.

Gentlemen, lady.

3:45. I'm keeping any of the conductors on schedule.

We're going 3:45 to Randolph Beer.

Oh, why, thank you, sir.

Right there is Drew with that Leonardo himself,

with cool sunglasses,

with a most...

Yup, there it is. Yup, see that? You know that shot.

Drew is...

He literally symbolizes people doing what they wanna do.

People following their dreams.

People finding a passion,

developing that passion, honing in that passion,

and turning it into a career.

And if we could all do that, then we'd all be very lucky.

So it's pretty cool what he's doing.

DREW'S FRIEND: I mean, I used to live with Drew.

Drew's one of the best friends from college,

and spent a lot of time living together

when he was working at these corporate law firms.

He's going into this because it's a passion,

and wherever it takes him, that's where he goes.

And in a very admirable way, he makes decisions.

You know, he's not scared of making a decision.

We're also a fan of craft beer.

And, it's a pretty competitive space, you know?

It's not what it was 15 years ago.

And so, to the question

of what kind of opportunity there is out there...

I think he's gonna kill it.

I think he's a beer nerd.

He comes in here and he gets a raging boner

because he sees the beer list.

He's... He's gonna do a good job.

I think it's his passion.

Definitely not law.

This is a barrel-fermented saison.

Well, what about this guy, huh?

MAN: Nerd alert. Nerd alert.

Yeah, that's getting nerdy. That's getting nerdy.

[MACHINE BEEPING]

I wanna somehow create a meme where I'm going,

"Om-nom-nom-nom."

Just to get the bottom of it. Like this, like with your mouth open.

It smells... It smells like you're in an IPA.

Like, I mean, like, really in one.

Like swimming in beer.

-God. -So creepy.

It's crazy.

TOUR GUIDE: Okay, now, what we normally do...

That hammer mill takes those hot cones

and grinds them up. Go and grab some.

What I want you to see, it's relatively coarse.

It's a misnomer when people say we grind it to a fine powder,

but we don't. A lot of people do.

-You know Seco? -Uh-huh.

-TOUR GUIDE: It's about 3,200. -Wow.

So, again, these two rows, go ahead and grab a cone.

BRIAN: It is a very hardy one.

It's a very hardy one as far as the cone structure. Yeah.

Compared to the sterlings in there, much more delicate.

Yeah.

[INDISTINCT CHATTER]

Look at you.

-Ooh lar-lar. -Look at that. So artistic.

All right, so how we doing so far, guys? How's this trip? Decent?

For those people on the teams, people that know me well,

this stuff's not wasted on me.

Like, I live this stuff.

Going out on those hop fields, it's a different experience.

You can read about it, you can learn about it in beer immersion,

you can do it in all these different ways,

but until you get to see, touch, feel, right,

this is the way that adults really kinda anchor those memories.

I was thinking about, you know, having young kids now,

and going through, like, experiences you've had with them,

like, you know, holidays at Christmas,

you know, it's exciting as a little kid.

And then you get to experience with your kids, and you're like,

"Oh, my God, this is a new entire thing."

And so this week, I am trying to make a conscious effort

to experience it through other people's eyes a little bit.

Hopefully, being able to enhance that, at least in some small ways, so...

-All right, German... -German style lager...

Yeah, give it a taste.

-Super clean, unfiltered. -Oh, yeah.

-Oh, wow, it's super clean for unfiltered. -Yeah, yeah, yeah.

DREW: We're going to New York City Brewers Choice.

They've got visiting brewers, they've got people bringing food.

There's just... there's a lot of action going on,

and I see it kind of as a celebration

of what's gone on in the past year here in New York City

in terms of the rising beer scene

and just how powerful it's gotten,

but also kind of a celebration of where it's going in the future.

Don't you have a child at home you should be dealing with?

What's up, bro?

-Anywhere, man. Doing well. -Good to see you.

What do you got? Oh, you have a kolsch.

Good kolsch. Brewed-style kolsch.

We also have a giant hop sour.

You don't get vegetal, you get a little grassy...

Yeah, that vanilla bean just rounds it out at the end.

BREWER: I didn't use any extracts over there.

Nothing, yeah? Wow.

Are you guys near at New York State Farm?

We are at New York State Farm. We're opening April 1st.

It's been up for 36 weeks now.

I was just gonna say, you're at 36th street?

I was just doing a talk at a high school over there

about both brewing and being a lawyer,

-so go figure. Yeah, man. -What's your name?

-Drew. -Drew? Merlin.

I've met these individuals,

I can collaborate with these individuals.

I can learn about what these guys have done,

and I'm gonna turn that into who I am

and where I go from.

And that's the beauty of it.

Every step I take, every brewer I discuss, every beer I sniff

puts me one step further.

This is why I'm not sitting in the office.

The reason why I'm gonna be sitting in the office in a couple hours

is so that I can be here again.

And that's really what it's all about.

This is it.

What's up, man?

This is it. Ha!

[FUNKY MUSIC PLAYING]

JIM: Bartenders tasted it,

you know, they didn't really know what to make of it

because it was so different.

And they liked it,

but they weren't sure if it was, like, okay to like it.

Some of them would just, like, follow, uh, their palate

and listen to what their palate was telling them.

And they would, "Hmm."

Uh, you know, and when I would close the sale,

was, you know, again they'd taste it,

and I'd say, "Do you think it's good enough to offer to your customers?"

And some said yes.

ROB: I didn't have a lot of overhead.

I just had me for an employee.

Didn't have fancy equipment.

So we just kinda hunkered down and did our thing for ten years.

We are having our best year ever in the State of Maine

despite the fact that in the last ten years,

we've gone from about 25 breweries to nearly 100.

We have more people coming out to the brewery

than we've ever had before,

and more breweries in this industrial park.

So, despite the fact that there are all these breweries opening up,

there seems to be enough business to go around.

GARRETT: Eventually, I became head brewer.

I became pretty well-known for the beers, you know, that I was making then.

Uh, I was getting together with David Bruce,

who started the brewpub movement in the '70s.

I came to Brooklyn Brewery and brought those guys with me into Brooklyn Brewery.

I feel that some of the things that Brooklyn Brewery does

are at that top, you know, of the pyramid.

For example, we were the brewery that invented collaborations,

and that is now a standard part

of the craft-brewing culture.

I'm really proud of that.

I get a chance now to hang out with people who have been heroes to me.

And then somebody else comes along and tells you,

"Oh, I read your book and that inspired me to get into beer,

"and now I've been a brewer for five years."

You wanna burst into tears.

SAM: Right around '99, late '99, 2000,

we started bottling 90 Minute IPA.

'Cause 90 Minute is the first bottle that said the words "Imperial IPA" on it.

In the same month, we also released Midas Touch,

which is the first, sort of, ancient ale.

A modern beer packaged and distributed,

referencing using molecular evidence,

a beer that was brewed centuries ago.

And at that moment, we went from being these freaks in the beer industry,

You know, "Dogfish, you put raisins in your beer.

You put coffees. You're disrespectful."

to, I think, Esquire called 90 Minute the best IPA in America that year.

People Magazine,

Today Show did stories onMidas Touch.

And we've been fortunate for 20 years

that that innovation and that refusal to discount or homogenize our beer

really started paying off around '99 to 2000.

KIMMICH: And we're the new place in town,

so everybody wanted to try it.

But if we had sucked, they wouldn't have come back.

And so we just got busier and busier

month after month, year after year,

to the point where we would just be full.

Twenty minutes after we open, we're full

until last call and the kitchen closed,

and then that was it.

The next day, you do it again.

And that was our success. Word spread quickly.

People talked about our beer, they talked about our food,

about the restaurant, everything about it.

And it just got crazier and crazier

until we decided, finally, Jen convinced me,

"Let's open a production brewery."

And thank God we did, 'cause the pub got wiped out on a Sunday night

in tropical storm Irene,

and Tuesday morning was our first canning run of Heady Topper.

And at the time, when we started packaging Heady Topper, there...

A double IPA in a 16-ounce can

in a four-pack was pretty much non-existent.

Now, you know, it's kind of expected.

You know, there's a lot of breweries out there

putting double IPAs in 16-ounce cans in that four-pack format

and to us, it's the perfect way to do it.

You know, it's your own 16-ounce keg.

Perfect, every time.

You know, a big motivator's 'cause Jen and I wanted to create our own jobs.

we wanted to be our own bosses.

I was done with crappy bosses.

If it was gonna be anything, it would be up to us,

and we would create the atmosphere that we would wanna work in.

And we've carried that throughout every one of our projects.

So I've made the mistake in the past of, uh...

of studying, like, on the couch or whatever.

That last owners of this house have this set up.

It's like a little kinda office space,

so I found that if I... just when I'm up here,

study 100% of the time...

So these are-- I tried to do color-coded ones,

like the, you know, obviously pear-colored beers

versus the yellow.

The amber-ish colored beers are in red.

If I'm looking for one particular one and I know that it's yellow,

then I can go, "Okay." You know what I mean?

I can pick through pretty quick.

I have, you know, between five and eight,

um, commercial examples from...

usually from three different countries.

Uh, and then, on the back,

I'll have some comparative stuff

and maybe some, um, historical stuff.

And if there's anything that I...

like as I'm researching the style, find...

it's something that's new to me that needs to be committed to memory, I'll put on those.

An ounce of golden. Half an ounce of rum...

So, right now, I'm pulling out a series upon series of hops,

different styles of hops here,

just to find two that I'm interested in,

if they have it.

Uh, for the beer style that I'm trying to brew,

which is gonna be a brown ale brewed with spices.

A brewmaster is like the chef in a kitchen.

Everything from the concept of the beer,

the ingredients, the kitchen.

In a brewery, there's somebody that is responsible

for purchasing the ingredients,

for developing the recipes,

for maintaining the quality and consistency of the beer

in adherence to those recipes.

GARRETT: Everything that goes into it

from start to finish until it lands in your glass

and you're happy, that's the brewmaster.

The way that I often put it is I am the liquid,

and the liquid is me,

and there's nothing about it that I don't care about,

and there's nothing about it that I ought not to know.

Brewmaster, yeah, this is funny joke

because you are responsible for everything.

To check whether quality of malt is okay, whether brew is in good phase,

whether fermentation run properly,

whether by maturation the beer has the... this delicious taste.

Brewing, this is never-ending process,

twenty-four hours, whole year, each day.

If someone is willing to call themselves a brewmaster,

they better come correct and prove it

by brewing amazing beer.

And whether it's just a dude in his kitchen

that says, "I'm the fucking brewmaster of my house,"

if the beer is good, that person deserves that title.

So I don't want it to be completely knocked out.

I still want a little bit of solid in there.

just so that there's...

it doesn't all blend in and completely douse the beer

and change the consistency of the beer.

I wanna have a little bit of "something" something

that I pull out in the end, too.

-This is just... -[BLENDER WHIRRING]

Like MacGyver's sparging.

This is just kind of been made up as the process is going on.

This is just learning how to work with it,

seeing what's gonna work best, and if it doesn't work,

learning how to figure out a new method to make it work.

Well, my apologies to all of my fellow Poles out there.

This is not Polish vodka.

If I had it, I would've definitely used it.

Nonetheless, Na Zdorovie!

Let's kill any micro bacteria we got going on in here

and make us some nice melon addition.

All right.

We got our ounces of vodka in there.

We're gonna make sure that's gonna be dispersed a little bit.

We wanna make sure all of our melon gets a little play with the vodka.

You know, this is basically like Spring Break going on in here right now.

And when done with Spring Break,

it's time to enter the frozen period.

We're gonna leave that guy in there for three days. The freezing process.

In addition, the vodka we got here

is gonna help kill any microbes, get any bad bugs out of there

to make sure that nothing but pure, beautiful melon hits my beer.

People typically hate coming into places like this with me

'cause I end up staring at the shelves for, I don't know,

I mean, a half-hour, hour or past,

I"m just kind of wandering up and down the isles, looking at stuff.

A lot of times, I'm doing the descriptive panel for Brian.

These are the beers I'll grab to kind of push them outside

and see how good they are at picking up random flavors in beers

'cause Dogfish Head put just about anything

you can ever imagine in a beer,

so they're always kinda fun to include in those things.

You sit down here and you got stuff from 5 Rabbits in Chicago.

Um, and then all the way down here,

you've got stuff from Belgium, right, so duvels, one of the classics,

and probably one I'll pick up for the tasting stuff with Brian tomorrow,

'cause it's such a great example for Belgian Strong Golden.

You can imagine being the average consumer that comes in here

and you see there's just sea of beers,

and it's hard to know which ones you're gonna like,

what the flavors are, anything like that,

if you're not familiar with beer styles.

So seeing you're having something that pops off the shelf,

can really kinda draw the attention in for a lot of these brewers

and encourage people to try their beer,

if nothing else, because it's got cool packaging.

[ACOUSTIC MUSIC PLAYING ON SPEAKERS]

Every night, 4:00 a.m., I'm awake.

"What did I forget in that spreadsheet?

"Wow, what about this cost of this employee?

"Have I thought about that tax?"

And there's just so much [CHUCKLES] that goes into planning a business,

and then, on top of that, to plan a brewery.

It's mind-numbing and daunting at the same time.

I don't know, I'm making this all up as I'm doing it.

This is all projection.

And being type-A, being risk averse, being a lawyer,

you don't do that type of stuff.

And so I'm sitting here, freaking out

about whether or not anything that I've said in here

will actually translate to the real world.

Physically, I can print out this document right now, and I can read through it,

and the spelling is probably pretty good, and the grammar's okay.

But do I feel like I'm right or confident in it?

[SIGHS] That's a freaking tall order.

Put your headphones on.

BRIAN: Well, I'm gonna go upstairs. [LAUGHS]

And if I hear a can crack instead of a bottle open

or if I hear a cork pop,

it's gonna give me context clues.

So, yeah, I get them out.

Yeah, um...

He'll send me out or his boss will send me a list of things to buy.

Um, normally, he doesn't know what I have.

So it's kind of like just from helping him study,

I know a lot of the classic examples of the styles.

He missed it by so close last time.

I feel like...

I don't know, I feel like he's gonna nail it this time.

All right.

BRIAN: All right. You're gonna give me the bad news?

-WIFE: Are you ready? Go ahead. -BRIAN: Yeah.

Oh, you're gonna put me on the spot, make me guess first?

Let's see you work.

Um, so the first one,

uh, I said either... I said cream ale.

-It's kolsch. -Is it kolsch? Okay.

Number two, uh, toasty malt, Munich-y.

Uh, I said Marzen.

Oktoberfest, yeah.

BRIAN: Yeah, what is it?

Which one?

Spaten Oktoberfest.

Number three, dark but really low roast.

I said Schwarzbier.

-Yep, Kosritzer. Craft Kosritzer. -Nice. Kosritzer.

BRIAN: So the last two, I said German pilsner.

-Yeah, Krombacher. -Okay.

Number six was hard. Um...

Is it Dortmunder?

-Yep. -Is it? Nice.

I said Helles or Dortmunder.

-Damm. -Damm. Nice.

And that little oxidized helped.

-WIFE: All right, you got six done. -Yeah.

This is our life, pretty much.

WIFE: Yeah, this is it.

Sometimes, they don't go as well.

Our recycling can would indicate that we have a lot crazier life than...

I know, yeah.

There's the people who take up the recycling product,

"These people party their effin' faces off."

-But, little did they know, -We keep them awake, that's for sure.

the vast majority of that beer goes down the drain. [LAUGHING]

We just put in milk jugs, just leave them around as tips,

although just mixed up all in there.

Yeah.

I'm a Connecticut boy, so I'm on my way out to Connecticut.

I got a lot of friends out there,

and I lucked out, through a friend of a friend,

putting me in touch with this man, Danny Moses.

He's a character in the movieThe Big Short.

He seems to have quite a comprehension

of the economy, investing, the hedge fund market,

and just generally financial numbers overall.

-Danny? -Hey, Drew.

-Drew. -How are you?

-Pleasure to meet you. -Very nice to meet you.

-Come on in. Absolutely. -Thank you so much for having me.

Come on in.

Have a seat right there.

Did you bring me some samples?

-I certainly did. -Atta boy.

[STUTTERS] So I did the key fact sheet,

and this is kinda like the full thing and the entire background of everything.

But, as you said,

-first, the good stuff, right? -Right. Exactly.

I did get a chance to read through a lot of it.

I wrote down some notes, so I was able to get a better idea.

Oh, I really appreciate that.

Thank you so much for taking the time to look at it,

you know, for having me here.

-This is... this is my dream. -That's great.

This is my happiness, and I really think

this is where I see craft beer going in the future.

Craft beer and craft beer cocktails, which is even more important.

So, to make sure I don't give you any bottle bombs.

So this is gonna be the Bollywood Brown Ale.

What this guy has is it's a brown ale

with cardamom cloves and cinnamon in it.

It comes in almost like a winter warmer for you.

So I don't know if you wanna do some glassware

or you're happy to swig straight out of the bottle.

If you think out of the bottle's good. I'll do it out of the bottle.

Absolutely.

That's great. Really good.

Right now, quality is such a key...

Quality and authenticity are such key aspects of this world,

of, frankly, the slow food movement as a whole,

and if you bring quality into both sets of products,

whether it'd be the Drew's Brews or the Drew's Booze,

that then uses the Drew's Brews...

Try saying that three times. [CHUCKLES]

That's where you're gonna find a cross-pollination of market segments,

and you're gonna find both the cocktail drinker,

who is looking for exploration,

because that's what we're hearing from the industry,

cocktail drinkers are looking for new things to try out.

Craft beer drinkers, you can't stop them from trying new things.

It's always, "What do you have for me next? What do you have for me next?"

This provides that next step immediately,

but also provides an opportunity to continuously change that next step,

whether it's changing the beer flavor, as in altering that,

altering creating an all-new cocktail for the beer,

working together to both break down walls

in the sense that, you're a cocktail drinker, I'm a beer drinker.

There's no longer a differentiation between the two of us

because we're branching out, we're exploring,

but we're doing it in a familiar capacity,

whether you're doing it in the cocktail and I'm doing it with beer in a cocktail.

So I got the whole kinda what you're trying to do,

you know, exploration and beer and so forth.

So, that's great. I like the concept, I like the name,

I like the variety, I like the entire idea.

Where I think there's issues,

you still will need to hire some key employees.

I have no doubt that you can find them,

but to have to hire the employee,

tell them they're not gonna take salary,

and make them invest in the company in some form or fashion.

And knowing that they won't be able to draw salary

probably for at least a year, a year and a half, so forth, that's tough,

because the person you're probably getting,

unless it's a very wealthy person

who just loves the business and wants to be a part of it, which is possible,

that seems a little far-fetched.

I would focus on, "This is my passion. I make a great beer.

Those two things together can ultimately lead to massive success

if I can operate."

Just from an operations perspective,

saying you're gonna use a used van for $15,000

and deliver the beer to restaurants locally,

that's practical, right,

but it's kind of a small-thinking detail

in terms of how you're gonna run the business.

It's kind of glue, you know--

glue and paste in putting the thing together to a degree.

-You know what I'm saying? Like... -Oh, absolutely.

But again, that's not a bad thing,

I just think you need to take a step back

and look at the business in its entirety as a business.

I completely understand and appreciate your criticism.

That is definitely something that I'm gonna take into consideration.

So, I don't think this is something right now,

under this business plan and under this stage, that I would invest in.

-I would invest in you. Okay? -[LAUGHS] Much appreciated.

But in this business plan, as it stands right now,

I don't think it's something that I would do,

but I think you're gonna make this into something. I really do,

um, because the beer is...

what is it? 40% alcohol?

I can't really get my words out at this point.

-[LAUGHING] -But, uh, no.

But, um, I think, um... I think it's great.

I probably should take my keys by myself.

I can throw the bottle caps away.

-That'd be wonderful. Thank you. -All right.

This way.

It's a beautiful house, by the way.

Yeah, I can do that.

Well, if you get lost in the Wilner Westport, give me a ring.

I'll keep in touch and I'll shoot you that email.

That'd be wonderful. Thank you so much.

-Have a great weekend. All right, then. -Take care.

Wow. Uh, God.

Um, I'm just...

I'm taking this all in.

Yeah, that went... That went well.

Of course, there's no investment yet,

but, yeah, there's something there.

I've got something here,

and, finally, there's some validation behind it.

[INDISTINCT CHATTER]

RAY: I'm Ray Daniels,

founder and directing Cicerone Program.

And I will be one of your oral examiners for the next two days.

So be direct, answer the question,

um, and stay on task.

If the examiner tries to interrupt you to redirect,

listen to the examiner.

We're gonna be your friend in that case.

BRIAN: You're just feeling very tense.

You know, it's kind of a high-stress type of situation.

It's like everyone comes in

and everyone's trying to pretend that they're, like, real confident,

but no one's confident, everyone's freaking out.

So, like, people are, like, kinda, you know, putting on airs,

puffing out their chests a little bit.

A lot of kinda ego stuff going on.

And then, by lunchtime, it's like everyone's kind of facade has been broken,

and is talking and chatting, you know, as much as we can,

and just trying to not freak out.

I mean, the kind of design of the test is almost to just put a lot of stress on you.

We're halfway through day one of the Master Cicerone exam.

In terms of the candidate responses,

I was doing oral exams, talking about beer styles.

And, boy, the first candidate came in,

just really hit it out of the park.

It's like, "Wow, maybe this is too easy."

And then, the next two or three, were like, "Okay, this is what I expect."

So I got pretty much the usual range of results.

You could hardly go wrong with those.

I mean, that's like, it's close to universal beers,

like the brown ale or...

a typical lager or something.

It's so versatile.

BRIAN: At this point, three courses are way through,

I think a lot of people just from talking to them,

are feeling like they're probably out of the running,

so I'm feeling good,

and now, I'm more on the homestretch.

[INDISTINCT CONVERSATION]

RAY: Congratulations.

You survived the Master Cicerone exam.

And again, in some cases...

[EXAMINEES CHEERING]

I hope that you will find it was rewarding,

and that it was a learning experience, regardless,

and it'll enhance your future beer knowledge one way or the other.

I just got to dinner with the kids.

We go to a beer place and walk in.

"Oh, Ray Daniels..."

He's like, "Dude, they're..." I was like, "Yeah, I got this, don't worry,

I'm a big fish in a really small pond."

As my wife always says,

"Don't forget, your only beer-famous."

[ALL LAUGHING]

-I want you to remember. -I'm actually famous.

I want to remind you.

All right, ladies and gentlemen,

congratulations on completing the ordeal.

ALL: Cheers.

I mean, I'm feeling...

In my mind, I'm feeling as good as I can feel.

Um, compared to last time,

I walked out feeling mediocre,

but thinking, you know, I had a decent chance,

and it turned out, I remember...

I remember a couple days after I took the last year, Jason was like,

"If you had to put money on it, what would it say? One way or the other."

And I said, you know, he had to put a number on it.

And I said, like, "83, 84, like, I really think I just barely missed it.

"But I might be pleasantly surprised and it ended up being 83.6."

This time, if somebody said, "Here's $1 million, you gotta put it on yes or no."

I mean, I'd put it on yes.

RAY: Break some hearts and make some days.

Ten phone calls to make.

Ten master candidates.

[CELL PHONE BEEPING]

We went over to the old Goodwill, dropped some stuff off.

We're moving back to Pittsburgh,

which we've been trying to do, you know...

When we moved up here, we knew it was gonna be temporary.

Uh, we thought we'd be here a little bit longer,

but we got the opportunity quicker than expected

to get back and still, you know,

do the same job that I really, really like,

so, um, or a slightly different version of that same job,

which is... or thrilled about.

But it happened quicker than expected.

Pretty much packed. We're kinda ready to go,

uh, here in a few days.

BRIAN: I'm glad you're here.

[BABY BABBLING]

So, I did not pass the exam.

Um, so I came, again, very close.

I did just... actually, slightly worse than last time,

which I don't...

Still struggling in my head as to how the heck that happened.

I'm really surprised, frankly, that I didn't pass this time.

I really had a good feeling that, uh...

I felt like I did just a little bit better than last time,

which is all I needed to do.

And the score didn't play out that way,

so I might just kind of take a year,

and come back in 2018 and take it.

Maybe if they offer one in the spring. I really don't know.

It seems like they're only gonna offer one Master Cicerone this year.

It's... It's a tough pill to swallow,

it's tough to stay motivated and continue doing it,

but, um...

[SIGHS]

It's really hard to put this much work into something

and not, you know, make it happen,

'cause it's, you know, you kinda...

Like I said, no matter how you, I guess, uh...

cut it in your head,

there's, you know, I left points in the table.

And when you're that close, you really can't afford to do that. So...

DREW: Yeah, so what we got going on here,

this is my jalapeno saison

which I brewed just two weeks ago

because I actually forgot that I was brewing for this event

or should I say that this event was coming up as rapidly as it was.

So I actually had to skip work for a day

and brew this beer on a Monday.

And so, as a result, it's called my Hookie Jalapeno Saison,

in honor of having to skip being a lawyer to become a brewer for a little bit.

Almost forgot the most important part.

Gotta get the branding there.

It's interesting.

So normally, you come to a festival like this

and you expect a younger crowd,

people who are a little bit more experimental in what they're trying in beer.

This is a much older crowd,

so it's gonna be even more of an uphill battle, and even more fun.

This is where the lawyer and the brewer come in together.

The lawyer convinces you to drink the beer that the brewer made.

At least that's the way I like to think of myself,

but hopefully I'll convince some people do that.

Say, while I run down the line...

I don't mean to catch you guys off.

Will you just pour for me if anybody comes up?

Yeah, thank you, man. I appreciate it.

And I'll do the same for you, obviously.

You get so much of that lime on the nose,

and then everything else come in through the rest. Thank you, Ma'am.

Oh, shoot. I gotta get back to work.

[INDISTINCT CHATTER]

Sorry, guys, I abandoned my post.

All right.

Just a little. Just a little guy.

Good.

-Let's do cheers. -Cheers.

To jalapenos.

-What's your name? -Drew.

And to Drew.

Drew's Brews.

I like it.

-Little surprise there, huh? -Really kick.

Va-va-voom.

[LAUGHS] That's the best response I've ever gotten.

-This is good. -Yeah?

-You're a fan? -Very good. It's different.

Different, that's what I'm going for.

It's different. It's very good.

-Just give me a little. -Little test.

-Thank you. -No problem. Thank you for trying it out.

Oh, it smells like jalapeno.

It smells like it's gonna give you heat,

but when you taste it, your tongue will be like,

-"What the heck just happened?" -Whoo!

-That's... -Give me a little bit more?

Yes, please. All right.

-There you are. -It's hot, but it's sweet.

WOMAN: Wow.

Yeah, you guys fans?

Huge market for this. All my kids.

So far, uh, it's been freaking great.

I mean, I'd probably respond the same way

if everybody walked right here and hated my beer.

I just like being here and interacting with the people.

But it's been exactly what I've wanted

in a sense that everybody for the most part who's come up

has come up here very quizzical, very skeptical.

I've been hauling people from afar,

and seeing, watching their mouths go,

"Jalapeno? I don't know if I want jalapeno."

"No, no, you do! Come over here."

And I think... I think I've proselytized enough.

I've converted a few to the flock.

In fact, I have this lovely woman who keeps coming back for more and more.

And that's why I'm here.

If there was just that woman and everybody else hated this beer,

I'd be the happiest camper in the world.

I could stand for another 12 and a half hours.

I don't care. This is what makes me happy.

This is why I do this.

Thank you again, guys. Take care.

All the best, okay.

This was so much fun. Thank you for having me, guys.

JIM: There are anthropologists who believed

that the reason that human beings

settled down, you know, into communities

and created civilization was in order to make beer.

It's so satisfying to come up out of that basement brewery

and to see people, after a long, hard day of work

or whatever things that they've been experiencing,

to sit down and to take what you created

and to take so much pleasure in it,

and to have that be the blossom for friendship and conversation and thought.

It's like collecting baseball cards at this point.

We got to talk about all the different styles

and places and times you had beer.

I think it's the way that concerts and music,

and things people love and are passionate about,

they're now collecting these beer stories.

And beers, as a way of life,

just something to talk about and relate with other people.

People wanna know where their beer came from.

It means something to them.

If they can buy beer from a brewery

that they know, that they can relate to,

that's part of the community.

The fact that I have the freedom to come up with anything in my wildest imagination,

and a month later, share it with beer-lovers at our pub,

is what gets me up every day.

It really is something that you get to do something you're passionate about,

and that's one of the things that I, you know,

I'm lucky enough to wake up every day

and know that, um, I do what I love.

If you fall in love with something,

say, it's jazz, you know, or it's baseball,

somebody played you your first Coltrane record

somebody took you to your first baseball game,

and on that day, a little door swings open.

On the other side is a better life.

That's what we're doing.

We're here to bring you a better life.

That is urgent.

[LAUGHS] It's very urgent.

I'm not entirely sure there's anything more urgent.

["BEER BOTTLE BOOGIE" PLAYING]

So, right now, the primary fermentation is more or less complete,

it looks like. Uh, you don't see...

When you have what's called "high krausen," like the peak of fermentation,

you get a big old, kinda cloud of, uh, CO2 and foam,

what looks like kind of a head on top of the beer.

♪ Beer bottle boogie

♪ I have the beer bottle boogie Way down deep inside ♪

♪ I went home that night About half past ten ♪

♪ The door was locked And I couldn't get in ♪

♪ I step around To the backyard gate ♪

♪ Somethin' was a-comin' But I ducked too late ♪

♪ I have The beer bottle boogie ♪

♪ I have The beer bottle boogie ♪

♪ I have the beer bottle boogie Way down deep inside ♪

♪ After a while I began to come around ♪

♪ I got up Over that dirty ground ♪

Break some hearts and make some days.

♪ She had The beer bottle boogie ♪

♪ I have The beer bottle boogie ♪

Hi, Brian, Ray Daniels.

Doing all right. How about yourself?

♪ Last night I was sittin' In the diamond box ♪

♪ I was all hepped up Like a shooting star ♪

♪ A-rockin' and a-reelin' And acting like a fool ♪

♪ The next thing I knew I fell off of my stool ♪

♪ I had The beer bottle boogie ♪

♪ I had The beer bottle boogie ♪

♪ I had the beer bottle boogie Way down deep inside ♪

♪ Well, the bartender kicked me In the seat of the pants ♪

♪ He said get out of here, boy You ain't got a chance ♪

♪ I started toward the door The bottle was flying ♪

♪ One caught me on the head And I started to cry ♪

♪ I had The beer bottle boogie ♪

♪ I had The beer bottle boogie ♪

♪ I had the beer bottle boogie Way down deep inside ♪

♪ I had The beer bottle boogie ♪

♪ She had The beer bottle boogie ♪

♪ Way down deep inside

♪ Last night I was sittin' In the diamond box ♪

♪ I was all hepped up Like a shooting star ♪

♪ A-rockin' and a-reelin' And acting like a fool ♪

♪ The next thing I knew I fell off of my stool ♪

♪ I had The beer bottle boogie ♪

♪ I had The beer bottle boogie ♪

♪ I had the beer bottle boogie Way down deep inside ♪

♪ Well, the bartender kicked me In the seat of the pants ♪

♪ He said get out of here, boy You ain't got a chance ♪

♪ I started toward the door The bottle was flying ♪

♪ One caught me on the head And I started to cry ♪

♪ I had The beer bottle boogie ♪

♪ I had The beer bottle boogie ♪

♪ I had the beer bottle boogie Way down deep inside ♪