TAMPA, Fla. — It’s no secret that craft beer is big business in Tampa Bay. Our plethora of breweries has made national headlines, and placed the region among other American craft beer hotspots like Portland, Oregon and Asheville, North Carolina.

Now, a local videographer and beer aficionado is, ahem, crafting a love letter to the Tampa Bay beer scene in the form of a new documentary film titled “Tampa Beer: Crafting the Bay.”

“We lived up in Brooklyn, like right right in Williamsburg before we moved down here, and we went to Brooklyn Brewery, that was kind of our spot where we just went to hang out with friends, and that's really what got me hooked on craft beer,” says James Blankenfeld of Blu Kamera Media. “I didn't really know what craft beer was like, it was always just the big brands and, you know, you go out you grab like a Budweiser you grab a Miller and that was just beer. And so Brooklyn Brewery to me really introduced what craft was and that it was something that in my opinion that tasted better. That there was, you know, it wasn't about money, it was about love and passion.”

Blankenfeld and his wife moved to the Tampa Bay area in 2015. He started his videography business doing weddings and events, and praises the region for the fact that he can work year-round, unlike other areas where snow and cold weather shut down the parties. He immediately noticed the explosion of craft breweries in the area and, being a craft beer fan himself as well as a filmmaker, he thought of shooting some footage of local brewmakers.

Blankenfeld, who’s done multiple short docs and had a thriller feature titled "The Evil Inside Her" streamed on Amazon Prime Video last year, didn’t go into this lightly.He was working on the doc before the COVID-19 lockdown, and has spoken to upwards of two dozen brewers about what it means to commit one’s life to the alchemy that happens when barley, yeast and water come together to create one of the things that have kept humankind going since the earliest days of civilization.

“Is that the way a pilsner is supposed to taste?” he asks. “Who's to say exactly right like it, like, from what I've heard from people is at the end of the day if you like beer, then they did their job, you know?”

Blankenfeld’s documentary reaches back to the Florida Beer Company, which incorporated in 1896 and weathered Prohibition by pivoting to other manufacturing processes until it could return to brewing. That business folded, unfortunately, but set a precedent that was picked up by something like 50 local breweries after Cigar City Brewing created a beer, the Jai Alai IPA, that garnered nationwide recognition. And it seems like more are opening every week.

Since the ascendance of Cigar City, the Tampa Bay area has become one of the nation’s top regions for craft beer, and local breweries regularly win nationwide accolades in competitions and at craft festivals. Blankenfeld has plumbed the history of Tampa Bay beer, going back to Florida Brewing Company's incorporation back in 1896. It’s a long and illustrious history, but for contemporary beer drinkers, it’s the current explosion that matters.

Blankenfeld and his crew have finished shooting; they got to this point thanks to some incentives from Visit Tampa Bay and Film Tampa Bay. Post-production will take more time, and more money. Blankenfeld presumes they’ll need another $20,000 to finish the film—there's an Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign live now—which would absolutely be a boon to a tourist industry cratered by COVID-19.

“The goal is, people see this and it brings them to Tampa to try the beer scene,” he says. “Or if they're in Tampa, it kind of opens their eyes to what's around here that they can maybe stick around for an extra day or two.”