To air in April 2011 - "Brewed on the Bay: The Craft Beers of Maryland"

In April 2011, Maryland Public Television will be airing Brewed on the Bay: The Craft Beers of Maryland, a half-hour documentary on the history of Maryland brewing and the rise of the 'craft' beer movement.

UPDATE: airing 14 April 2011.

Brewing on the Bay will film at breweries throughout Maryland, including all of the state's brewpubs. Those interviewed will include Hugh Sisson, Jim Lutz, Steve Jones, Rob Kasper, Turkey Joe Traber, Volker Stewart, Tom Flores, and other brewers and beer poobahs in the region.

Al Spoler is the brains behind the project.

A former director at Maryland Public Television (MPT), now working as a freelance producer, Spoler may be better known as sidekick to Hugh Sisson of Heavy Seas Brewery on the long-running Public Radio show Cellar Notes, a weekly wine (and occasionally, beer) review program in Baltimore, Maryland. Spoler runs the annual Maryland Governor's Cup Wine Competition, and teaches at Loyola University.

I may have a small part in Brewing on the Bay.

In mid-December at the Olney Ale House, Spoler interviewed me about the Oxford Brewing Company, where, in the early 1990s, I had been a brewer and, later, manager. Begun as the British Brewing Company, but now closed, Oxford was the first microbrewery to operate in post-Prohibition Maryland.




Once aired, the documentary will be available on the MPT website as streaming video; DVDs will be available for purchase.