Hoosier Hospitality: Craft Beer in Indiana

Almost 100 people watched a preview of Hoosier Hospitality: Craft Beer in Indiana last night at Bloomington Brewing’s new production brewery. Good crowd of beer people, IU folk. and WTIU folk, Bloomington and Upland beer, and One World Catering’s noshes. WTIU? That’s the Bloomington PBS station who created this one-hour documentary spotlighting the Indiana brewing scene.

You get to watch it Monday, March 7th at 8pm if you get WTIU (which, we’re told is on DirectTV in the Indy area at least). Sounds like good reason for a viewing party, hint, hint.

Repeats on Sat Mar 12, 12pm, Tues Mar 15, 1pm and 10pm and maybe Tues, Mar 22 at 8pm.

Check back here Sunday and we’ll post any news we get about viewing parties.

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It’s not often we get to do book or film reviews so you may want to look at this 2-minute promo before continuing.

Now, if you have time, read the press release

We’re back. Done?  Did you recognize several faces? Did you recognize all of them? Do you love a good beer? If so, you’re officially our kind of people.

This film packs a lot of info into a short time and that time goes fast. Anita Johnson does a very passable job being Samantha Brown traveling Indiana instead of Portugal. She can do anything.

After a bit of the History of Indiana Brewing done by Doug Wissing, there are interviews at Broad Ripple Brewpub, Bee Creek, Three Floyds, Rock Bottom North, Bloomington Brewing, Sun King, Upland, Black Swan, Bier Brewery, Great Crescent, MECA homebrewers’ garage, and Winterfest. They talk about why they’re in the business, the beers they like, the beers they brew, cans, lambics, and more.

Interspersed is Doctor Professor, er, Clay Robinson with food pairings, celebrity chefs, and some general stuff.

We don’t know much about film but we did notice the timing of sequences is geared to the attention span of an adult. Each interviewee is allowed the time to make their point and nothing seems rushed. It’s to the production crews credit, no doubt, that everyone comes across relaxed and competent at public speaking. You all deserve a round (of applause).

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Did you catch the quick view of Ron Smith in the promo? Don’t expect more of him on Monday, he ended up as spent grain on the cutting room floor.

BUT the show will be available on DVD starting next Tuesday. Not sure yet where or how much but probably on the WTIU web site. This DVD will have another 45 minutes of 10 more vignettes including the Ron Smith segment. And, we’d guess People’s, Lafayette, Figure 8, New Albanian, and Shoreline.