Stone Brewing co-founder Greg Koch is evidently not only a beer and marketing savant, he’s also a not-so-frustrated filmmaker, at least judging by the minor slew of streaming videos he has developed since his much talked-about debut, I Am a Craft Brewer.
His latest, which he was kind enough to preview for me a couple of weeks ago, is Stone Skips Across the Pond, a 26 or so minute videography of the trip he made, along with co-owner Steve Wagner and brewer Mitch Steele, to Norway and Scotland for collaboration brews with Nøgne Ø and BrewDog.
Parts one and two are now available for viewing at Vimeo, but you might want to wait until the whole things is uploaded, crack a bottle of Arrogant Bastard and sit back and enjoy. Because although beer obviously figures prominently in the film, it is definitely more travelogue than “beerologue” and a pretty damn enjoyable one, at that.
As I told Greg by email after viewing the film straight through, I like it for much the same reason I continue to recommend Pete Brown’s Hops and Glory, because it’s almost secondarily about beer and more so simply a good and highly entertaining story.