We are getting very close to setting the date and venue for the debut of Crafted to Last – Minnesota Beer Blossoms. Looks like mid-July. Minneapolis. The venue can support all of our plans/dreams for this event. Local beer. Local film. Local Music. One event at one location. Its been a long road and we are almost there.

Music is an important part of Crafted to Last at many levels and in many ways. Its all laid out in the Campaign for Music. A critical aspect of the Campaign for Music in particular and of the MN Craft Beer Project in general is the emphasis on local economies and communities. Highlighting the impact of locally brewed beer on associated local businesses is appropriate not because I happen to think that it is cool to have as many locally sourced options as possible, but because it is good for me, my neighborhood and our communities. The ideas are nicely summarized here. The basic idea is that dollars spent at local businesses are more quickly recycled into the immediate economy and the longer the currency circulates in the neighborhood before it leaks out to larger and larger cash streams, the more energy the local economy can glean from the flow of cash through our hands and into our neighbor’s.

The Campaign for Music was designed with this in mind. All of the money we raise in that campaign will be immediately returned to local economies through the community of musicians that participate in our projects. The music made possible by the campaign will enhance the film and video that describes how the community of Minnesota beer brewers responded to the beer distribution laws reformed in 2012. The documentary could not have been made without the participation of many breweries all across the state and the support of the Minnesota beer communities from everywhere we’ve been and a lot of places we have not.

The Campaign for Music and the roll-out of the documentary explicitly connect two important local communities, music and beer, within the state. By positioning our home brewed film at the nexus of the local beer and local music movements we have created a kind of social amplifier, or a cultural force multiplier. One contribution, monetary and otherwise, benefits in at least 3 communities local film, local music and local beer.

This is an auspicious moment for Crafted to Last – Minnesota Beer Blossoms. A tentative date for the debut of the film has been set and we are working with a local theater to stage a memorable event in Minneapolis when the public gets the first chance to see what I have been talking about and creating for the last 2 years.

It has been a tremendous honor and pleasure to work with the people in the film, drink their wonderful beers, and be given the opportunity to tell their stories to the world. This project has repeatedly exceeded my expectations in many different ways.

I am humbled every time I watch it and I’ve seen this film at least 100 times in one form or another.

I’ve lived with the people in the film for quite a while. I feel like we are old friends because I’ve spent hours listening to every nuance of the words they spoke on the day I recorded them. I’m quite pleased with the film as it stands. It is everything I envisioned on the road from Madison to Tomah in 2011 and more. The idea behind putting two people from each brewery on screen together was to capture some of the chemistry that underpins the brewery. When this worked, it worked very well. In every case it seemed to loosen everyone up and get them to a place where they could speak spontaneously about the subjects at hand.

I can’t wait to show everyone what we have been cooking up over here. That much should be clear from all the videos I have released over the last 2 years. The really cool part is that very little of what has already been released is included in the final cut of Crafted to Last. Even if you have dedicated yourself to watching every frame of the material we have already released on-line, you will be surprised by what you see and hear in the documentary.

Stay Tuned. Tell your friends. Support the Campaign.