Rory McHarg and Bret Miller’s easy going short documentary concerns a world-renowned beer, with a small-town history. Bell’s Brewery was created in 1983 in Kalamazoo, Michigan. One of the oldest craft breweries in the region, and one of the most successful in the country, it became famous among aficionados for its Two Hearted Ale, featuring a picture of a trout on the label. The eye-catching image, by local artist Ladislav Hanka, gained notoriety when comedian Dave Chapelle came to Kalamazoo and quipped “The Two-Hearted Ale? Why the hell did you put a fish on the label?”. This film explores why, following Hanka others to look at the history and inspiration behind everything from art to fishing.
The beginning of the film might suggest this is stealth advertising for a beer company, but the reality is far from that. Set to a dreamy acoustic guitar soundtrack, Hanka and a variety of eccentric Kalamazooians talk about the origins of the brewery, which is inseparable from the history of their community. It’s about the love of beer, art, and what that means to the interview subjects who couldn’t care less about sales figures. Aside from one stiff ad executive, everything featured seems to be a labour of love, done to tell a story or pay tribute to the past. It’s an alluring prospect, and you may feel surprised at how quickly the 40 minutes go by as you peek at this world, learning a lot more than the origin of a beer label.
The closest to conflict the film has is the absence of Bell’s founder, Larry Bell. A quick web search finds that he sold the brewery to a corporation in 2021, a sad but inevitable ending to the journey which isn’t focused on here. Instead, we watch Hanka talk about his artistry, local life, nature, and his family. These are, as he points out, all connected to the film’s focus, in a delightfully organic way. As Michigan drinkers interviewed guess at the reason behind the fish label, and the name Two Hearted Ale, the answer emerges in its own time, in an undramatic but satisfying fashion.
As pleasant as sitting in a fishing boat with a cold beer, A Two Hearted Tale is the sort of localised story you sense won’t be available to directors in the years to come. Then again, in a film that yearns for the way things were, perhaps that’s part of the charm.
A Two Hearted Tale premiered at the Indy Film Festival, and it has toured many more festivals across the US and the world.
