Karl Puschmann: Is Netflix's beer comedy Brews Brothers a tasty drop or is it flat?

Alan Aisenberg as Wilhelm Rodman and Mike Castle as Adam Rodman in Netflix comedy Brews Brothers. Photo: Netflix

COMMENT:

As we slide into the relative freedom of level 2 I have to admit there hasn't been much from the outside world that I've missed during our almost two months of lockdown.

I haven't missed schlepping to and from the office on a crowded bus in peak hour traffic five times a week, I haven't missed cladding myself in sensible work clothes every day and I most assuredly have not missed the extortionate bill presented each week by my 2 year-old's daycare center.

At the risk of sounding like the Grinch I haven't missed our scenic mountains or beautiful beaches or bustling malls at all. Nor did I miss those other freedom benchmarks people got incredibly excited about like greasy takeaways, overpriced coffees or getting my hair cut.

I'm not dunking on those who did. If living your best life involves standing on a mountain top chowing down a Big Mac while sporting a fresh do, that's cool. Whatever makes you happy.

But for me I've been livin' la Vida lockdown these past seven weeks. Mostly happy and content and not feeling particularly inconvenienced or bereft of liberty.

But the one thing I have really missed is going to the pub and talking nonsense with pals. Replicating socialising via drinks on Zoom didn't really cut it.

Mike Castle as Adam, Alan Aisenberg as Wilhelm and Carmen Flood as Sarah in Netflix comedy Brews Brothers. Photo: Netflix

It was this missing of pints and pub camaraderie that led me to taking a punt on Netflix's new comedy Brews Brothers. The show's set in a craft beer brewery and pub which is the exact same place I would also like to be set in right now.

What really sold me though was that it was from one of the guys behind The League. This sitcom about a group of mates and their long-running Fantasy Football league didn't really make a splash here but it was atrociously funny.

Despite full time being called on the series only five years ago I'm fairly confident it wouldn't have aged well. Its mix of gross out comedy, political incorrectness, mean spirited banter and smutty gags would see it handed the red card fairly quickly in the current climate.

But thanks to a likable all-star cast that included indie film hero Mark Duplass, cheery comedian Paul Scheer and the biting snark of Nick Kroll this comedy about men behaving extremely badly managed to stay on the right side of the line. Just.

Having supped down the first two episodes of Brews Brothers it's patently clear it wants to pick up The League's ball and call 'game on' for that comedic style. Even if for a lot of people time has now been called on that particular genre.

Suffice to say Brews Brothers is not for everyone. It opens with a running gag that sees the pub being mistaken for a sex shop because its clueless owner Wilhelm called it XXXTreme Rodman and gave his beers names like Full Mast and Golden Surprise.

Like The League it attempts to craft humour that blends incredibly smart rapid fire wit with lowbrow scatological juvenility and insider humour. Sometimes it pulls it off and a lot of the time it doesn't.

An early scene plays on the word 'growler', which is an oversized takeaway bottle enthusiasts purchase at craft beer outlets and also American slang for a big steamy poo.

The scene, which involves Wilhelm's "Take a growler, leave a growler" promotion going disturbing wrong, starts gross, gets worse before getting you laughing despite yourself as he argues semantics with a homeless man who is in the process of taking a growler outside the pub.

Alan Aisenberg, Marques Ray, Carmen Flood and Mike Castle in Netflix comedy Brews Brothers. Photo: Netflix

But the bodily humour doesn't end there. The main plot revolves around a big sale to a beer distributor that sees Wilhelm and his estranged, argumentative, beer snob of a brother Adam, attempting to exactly replicate the make-up and amount of pee needed to put in their IPA after a sabotage attempt goes horribly wrong.

So yeah, that's the sort of territory we're in here. Bad? Not fully, if you can stomach the gross out humour. I wouldn't recommend the show hugely but I did get a couple of chuckles out of it.

Mostly I got the sense of a show trying to work itself out. The best sitcoms are when the machinations and production disappears and you believe what you're watching. I've been trying to remember what The League was like in its early days before it became the slick, extremely funny, well acted comedy that I remember as The League but to no avail.

This show feels like everyone is still figuring things out. Maybe Brews Brothers will get there. Maybe not. The bigger question is whether the brand of comedy its serving up is still palatable to an audience.