Fun
Frisky
Nostalgic
Intense
Adventurous
Choked Up
Curious
Romantic
Weird
Craft breweries are a strange beast. Some of them are populated by anal beer nerds who have studied the craft on a molecular level. And others are populated by happy-go-lucky staffs that are just overjoyed that they get to drink at work. Brews Brothers brings those two types of beer geek together, and makes them rival brothers. Read on for more…
BREWS BROTHERS: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
Opening Shot: Shots of beer taps, and then we look up through the glass as beer pours into it. A voice says: “Beer! A wise man once said that beer makes you feel the way you oughta feel without beer.”
The Gist: Wilhelm Rodman (Alan Aisenberg) owns Rodman’s Brewing Company in Van Nuys. He’s passionate about beer, but perplexed about why people come in looking for sex toys. It might be because of his last name, the XXX in the “XXXtreme” sign and the fact that he has a beer called the Rod Guzzler.
He’s got two employees: Sarah (Carmen Flood), a former MMA fighter who has a cauliflower ear and wants to shape the place up, considering Will would rather throw foam around than refine his craft, and Chuy (Marques Ray), a former auto body mechanic who takes home kegs for “tastings”.
Right before a distributor is supposed to come in to taste the beer and see if he can sell it to local bars, in walks Will’s older brother Adam (Mike Castle). Will calls him “Oxi” for “oxidation”, basically because it ruins everything. The two of them haven’t spoken in about 20 years, since Will subbed in his own brew for Adam’s during a brewing contest when they were kids (yes, they brewed beer as kids). While Will has traveled the world brewing and getting drunk, the more studious Adam has been studying beermaking at the finest schools in the northwest.
Will, with the encouragement of Sarah, reluctantly brings Adam in, and his officious brother immediately starts to take over, looking to revamp the entire operation, and immediately drives away customers when he insults them for their beer choices. “Stella is the most unoriginal beer in the world, which makes you the most unoriginal person in the world,” he says to a woman who thought she could get a Stella Artois at a craft brewery. Adam is apparently so fastidious that he masturbates just short of climax for 29 straight days so he can explode on the 30th day.
When the distributor (Stephen Rannazzisi) comes around, Adam immediately pisses the guy off by questioning the menu choices and tap line cleanliness of the bars he distributes to. It’s at that point where Adam admits that he was banished from Portland because he hated IPAs so much, he laced a batch at a beer festival with hallucinogens. Sarah manages to patch things up with the distributor, and the brothers spend the next two weeks fighting while creating their own brews to present to the distributor when he comes back.
Our Take: If you were a fan of The League and missed the shaggy, loose vibe of that show, then Brews Brothers may scratch that itch. It’s not a coincidence that Jeff Schaffer, one of the creators of The League, is an executive producer here. But the show is more the brainchild of his brother Greg, a veteran comedy writer who’s most associated with shows like That ’70s Show, Mad About You, and Notes From The Underbelly. With a largely under-the-radar cast, the Schaffers generate a number of big laughs in the series’ first episode. But we’re not sure where the show can go from there.
Here’s the problem we see with this show: There is potential to get some mileage out of the rivalry between the uptight Adam and his slacker brother Will (who changed his name to Wilhelm to honor the German beer purity law of Reinheitsgebot), but right off the bat the two of them are more caricatures than characters. One of the good things about The League is that the ensemble not only had great chemistry together, but their characters weren’t as archetypal as the Rodman brothers are. Not that the Schaffers can’t course correct and deepen the brothers to the point where at least a big portion of the jokes come from their characters instead of dick gags (yes, I just wrote that). But for right now, there’s not enough depth to sustain a series.
But the laughs are there, especially in that ragged, almost improvised style that Jeff Schaffer brought to The League. It gives the show a bit more of a homemade vibe, which helps make the inconsistency of the story go down a bit easier. It’s supposed to be goofy and silly, and the craft beer industry, which consists of self-important nerds like Adam and “I can’t believe I get to make beer for a living” types like Will, is ripe for a skewering. As long as the characters become less generic over time, the show could stay on for awhile.
Sex and Skin: Again, lots of single-entendre beer names that play off the Rodman name, and food truck owners Elvis (Zach Reino) and Becky (Inanna Sarkis) tend to make their kids’ menu favorites while bottomless.
Parting Shot: The distributor loves Will’s beer, and orders 20 kegs, but then Adam tells Will that he pissed in the tank in order to get revenge on his brother. “What are we gonna do?” asks Will. “I don’t know. You’re an imbecile, and I don’t have that much piss,” replies Adam.
Sleeper Star: We almost feel that Reino and Sarkis could have their own show as Elvis and Becky, who make gourmet grilled cheese and chicken fingers, often while sitting on a toilet installed right there in the truck. That’s when they’re not having public sex.
Most Pilot-y Line: When Will tells Sarah and Chuy the story about him and Adam, he tells them a fact about the Yakima Valley, where they grew up and grows 70% of the nation’s hops. “Nobody knows that and nobody cares,” she replies. “I’m actually angry that I know now.” That’s one of those lines we’ve heard on shows like this a few too many times.
Our Call: STREAM IT. Brews Brothers is funny and is easy going down, like a smooth pilsner. But we’d rather it be a little deeper, like a good ale. And those are the last beer comparisons we’ll make (for now).
Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, VanityFair.com, Playboy.com, Fast Company.com, RollingStone.com, Billboard and elsewhere.
