Bottle Conditioned Movie Review
Editor’s note: Bottle Conditioned will be showing at the Sonoma International Film Festival March 25 and 26, 2023. Check out the listing for ticket info.
Sniffing beer photo credit Cynasty Films LLC
Bottle Conditioned is a sweet new movie about my favorite beer style, sour beer. As a beer lover and a big aficionado of sour beers from Belgium since the early 1990's, this movie is a sight for sore eyes, especially being cooped up during Covid, Lambics and Gueuzes are older historical styles that had almost disappeared but have become hot commodities recently. These beers can last decades! And these are only produced in a very small river valley, mostly just south of Brussels, called Payottenland. The movie is an insider's view of where we are today with these incredible beer styles and the producers who create them
The movie does an excellent job of painting a picture of how three companies in Belgium are reacting to a surge in demand for these types of beers. Beer geeks from around the world, in the last 20 years or so, have discovered Lambics and Gueuzes, driving up demand and thus scarcity, dramatically
Pouring beer photo credit Cynasty Films LLC
One story line involves the Van Roy family at Cantillon, a fifth generation brewery in Brussels. Jean Pierre is the patriarch with his wife Claude, three children(Jean currently manages the business) and now grandson running/working the brewery with the new generation’s ideas on how the brewery should be run. Another storyline involves Armand Debelder, a second generation brewer/blender, and his new partners (the sons that he never had) and inheritors of the business 3 Fonteinen in Beersel/Lot, and their goals and philosophical differences. The third story line involves Raf Souvereyns, and his Bokke Blendery in Hasselt, the hot new kid on the block trying to innovate in the slow-to-evolve Lambic industry. As far as tradition, Souvereyns basically wants to start his own.
All of the principals are "Artists", masters of producing great beers. Some have very strong personalities. In general, though, not strong businessmen and which leads to some of the conflicts that arise during the film. The internal discussions and the debates within the companies, two of which barely survived and the newcomer, riding the wave of new demand, keep the viewer interested to see how things might shake out
Discussing beer photo credit Cynasty Films LLC
There were some areas that I thought were shortcomings, especially if anyone watching is not a beer geek and doesn't know something about the style. These areas would help paint the picture of how and why these beer styles are unique and wonderful:
-The historical roots of spontaneous fermentation (it was done everywhere) and
the Terroir of Pajottenland (think sourdough bread and San Francisco having the best with the unique microbes in the air)
-Why these beers can age for decades while the vast majority of other beers go bad relatively quickly
-Sour beer as there is good sour and bad sour
These elements could be briefly discussed to educate those who are not familiar with these beers. Otherwise, viewers are left wondering exactly why beer drinkers are going bonkers over these beers and willing to pay hundreds of not thousands for some of these.
Overall, this movie is great visually and keeps your attention through the end. Can't wait to go back to Payottenland this summer to celebrate my birthday with Lambics and Gueuze's and see the progression for these companies since the movie was filmed.