Beerfest

At the latest beer tasting/rating session with my usual crew this past Thursday, we decided to take a bit of a break from the notebooks for part of the night and watch Beerfest, which this month's host Paul - aka The Guy Who Buys Every Movie Released On DVD And Watches Them On A Kick-Ass Home Theatre System - recently picked up.

The serious craft beer aficionado in me should've been horribly offended by the fact that the film celebrates binge drinking, stupid drinking games, and the age-old connections between beer and half-naked women. But since I also have a strange and somewhat misguided appreciation for stupid and sophomoric comedies - from Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure to Harold & Kumar Go To White Castle - I couldn't help but love this flick.

Oh, sure, it's got it's fair share of puerile and scatological humour (ever seen a frog being masturbated?), and some rather gratuitous sexism (although in most cases, it's played with such over-the-top gratuitousness [yes, that's really a word - Firefox spell-check told me so!] that only the most prudish would find it offensive). But it's also quite clever and self-aware in places, not to mention laugh-out-loud funny. And really, how can you not love a film that includes (A) an uncredited cameo by Donald Sutherland as a dying Bavarian patriarch who chugs several mugs of beer before pulling his own plug; (B) Cloris Leachman as a foul-mouthed great grandmother who gives a hand-job to a large sausage; and (C) Willie Nelson as Willie Nelson?

So, yeah - if you're looking to kill a couple of hours with some relatively mindless but not completely moronic entertainment, then invite over a few buddies, chill a few brewskies, and watch Beerfest.

Or alternatively, you could read the stuff that I've written for Taste T.O. and Gremolata in the past couple of weeks, including a review of last month's Brooklyn Brewing dinner at beerbistro, a report on a great food & hospitality conference called Terroir: A Sense of Place, and "Beer of the Week" features on Fuller’s London Pride, Trafalgar Celtic Pure Irish Ale and Gayant La Goudale. But you'll probably enjoy the movie more...