Emerson Student Launching a Beer-Based Web Series

Artwork provided.

Emerson film student Shane Uriot and Emmanuel grad Jeremy Quaglia have launched an $8,000 Kickstarter campaign to help support their new web series exploring the people and communities behind some of New England’s most influential craft breweries. American Brewed  is currently in pre-production with nine free episodes scheduled to air starting in September. Each episode will range from 15 to 20 minutes with breweries like Foolproof, Jack’s Abby, and Blue Hills Brewery already on board.

“After I turned 21, I started to homebrew a lot with my grandfather,” Uriot says. “I became really passionate about the process, so as a filmmaker I wanted to explore the medium in different ways. I think a web series is the most feasible and most interesting way to do that. Also, an online series give viewers a platform to discuss the individual breweries, which is pretty unique.”

Other breweries featured in the fall season of American Brewed will be Grey Sail out of Westerly, Mayflower Brewing Company out of Plymouth, Wormtown out of Worcester, and Rapscallion out of Fiskdale. Assuming Uriot and Quaglia are able to achieve their Kickstarter goal—which will go toward transportation, lighting, camera, and audio equipment upgrades—the two plan on filming a second season before the end of 2014.

“Our vision is to move away from reality television as much as humanely possible,” Uriot says. “Craft brewing is an art unto itself and the people that are around it are extremely interesting. We want to make sure we give a very honest portrayal of what really goes into beer-making and the communities that support it.”