This documentary changed my views as to how my family and I should spend our money on beer. Avoid Anheuser-Busch because they do what is in their power to stop these small time brewers like Dogfish Head. They can control how the self's at stores are stocked; they bring lawsuits against brewers that are struggling to survive. As soon as a type of beer becomes a hot commodity they snatch it up and eliminate all of those opposing. I think the documentary did a great job of highlighting this and definitely changes my position on support certain companies. I will not support the following brands do to their affiliation with Anheuser-Busch Company, Rolling Rock, Widmer Bros, Bacardi, Wild Blue, Busch, Bud Light, Budweiser, and Natural Ice. Watch it and I am sure you will join me.

"Beer Wars" is by-and-large stylishly done, it is largely entertaining, and it makes its subject an interesting one. Part of its trouble, though, is that it doesn't seem to know exactly what its subject is, beyond the fact that it has to do with beer. The film vacillates as it proceeds between being a series of profiles of small brewery owners, a history of the beer industry in America, a travelogue of the director's trip to various beer-related corporate events, and a screed against the modern business of brewing and Anheuser-Busch in particular.

The one element that seems to unite everything is that is seems to be trying very hard to get across the message that "the beer industry operates as a business," which was quite obvious to me before I started watching "Beer Wars." There is little attempt to hide a bias against Anheuser-Busch, Miller, and Coors and towards small breweries, but this black-and-white view of the subject becomes tiring and does not seem very thoughtful. Big-beer executives are interviewed in long shot to show their opulent boardrooms, small beer businesspeople are shown with inspiring music at home with their cute children.

What's missing is the fact that both large and small breweries are businesses -- they both want to make money and they both want to make beer. Putting everything in such simple terms does a disservice to the subjects. I usually like the beer from smaller breweries much better, but that doesn't mean I can't recognize that they are moneymaking operations as well (or that I can't enjoy a Boddington's because Inbev has bought a stake).

In addition, director Baron is keen to point out that she comes from a place of experience in the beer world having run Mike's Hard Lemonade, but that is hardly finely-crafted beer, nor is it beer at all by any definition other than that or certain lawmakers. One of the underdog subjects she decides to follow is trying to market a mixture of beer with caffeine, which sounds to this viewer like a terrible idea and not the kind of gourmet beverage that Baron is suggesting Big Beer is trying to quash.

In all, an interesting subject comes through, but the film is far too unfocused within it, and even though I agree with most of its points, it comes off far too stridently partisan for my taste.

Being a self-proclaimed "Beer Snob", I found Beer Wars to be an entertaining documentary, yet as other reviewers have noted, it is pretty clear that the film maker, Anat Baron, had an agenda against Anheuser-Busch (and to a lesser extent, the other two big brewers, Millers and Coors). Don't get me wrong, I'm no fan of Anheuser-Busch and don't buy any of their products, but their portrayal in the film came off as a bit too mean spirited in my book.

The thing is, it didn't need to be. It could have just presented the facts and that alone would have shown what a crazy monopoly Anheuser-Busch has. Things like the law suit they slapped on Dogfish Head for their Punkin' Spice and Chickory Stout beer names goes a log way to show how these people do business. That spoke for itself. But certain segments, like when they show employees from Millers and Coors doing nice extra-curricular activities and enjoying a beer after work with their co-workers, and then Anat saying that she didn't see any of that "comradery" at Anheuser-Busch, was a bit too much of a blanket assumption on her part, given she was probably just given a small tour of their headquarter brewery. If it was an Anheuser-Busch employee making that statement, that would be different, but it wasn't. It was just the film-maker's assumption after one visit to the brewery.

The film does educate on certain aspects of the industry which are not "common knowledge" and those segments are very entertaining. Things such as how beer is displayed in a supermarket and how much influence the "big 3" have in deciding the layout, is surprising. So was the 3 Tier system segment, covering how beer gets from the brewer to the consumer and having to go through distributors.

My favorite parts of the film were whenever it would follow Sam Calagione from Dogfish Head or Jim Koch from Samuel Adams. Being a big fan of both those breweries it was a great "behind-the-scenes" look at how they work and what it took to get to where they are now. I can watch a documentary just on Dogfish Head alone. Very good stuff.

And then there were some segments which seemed to be just for fluff/show. Like the blind taste test of Coors Light, Bud Light and Miller Lite. Initially, this seems like a good test to show that most people can't tell those apart, but I am not too sure what she was trying to prove. All those beers are of the same style. American Light Lagers. Of course they are supposed to taste similar. If you put three delicious IPA's in front of me, I'm not sure I'll be able to successfully tell you which is which brand, since their flavor characteristics are so similar. Same with three Stouts, 3 different brand of vodka, etc. Overall I did enjoy the film, as it had plenty of informative parts, but it could have benefited from not taking the low road and bashing Anheuser-Busch as much as it did. Like I mentioned, it could have made its point without the sensationalized parts.