What's cooking: Brewery documentary tracks a hot trend. Plus: Shrimp trees!

Minnesota is a hot­bed of craft brew­er­ies, with es­ti­mates of 1.9 per capita — two for each of us, re­al­ly? (The Brewers Association estimates 1.9 per capita, with per capita in this case meaning per 100,000 21-plus adults.) What goes into start­ing and, more im­port­ant, sur­viv­ing is ex­plored in a new docu­men­tary, "Blood, Sweat and Beer," which will be shown June 28 at Bry­ant-Lake Bowl, part of a 35-city na­tion­al tour. The film fol­lows the jour­ney of two start-up brew­er­ies, es­pe­cial­ly Backshore Brew­ing of Ocean City, Md., which strug­gled to sur­vive its first year of busi­ness af­ter be­ing hit with an ag­gres­sive trademark law­suit, not dis­simi­lar to the trade­mark law­suit faced by Duluth's Bent Pad­dle Brew­ing, which was set­tled far more grace­ful­ly. Show­time is 3 p.m. at 810 W. Lake St, Mpls. You can watch a trail­er here: http://bloodsweatbeermovie.vhx.tv.

Madden's on Gull Lake has raised the stakes on its annu­al Food & Wine Week­end, Au­g. 28-30, which of­fers guests the chance to inter­act with re­nowned chefs through a num­ber of ac­tiv­i­ties, dem­on­stra­tions and ed­u­ca­tion­al ses­sions. A­mong those on this year's ros­ter: John Kraus, a new par­tic­i­pant whose Patisserie 46 has gained in­ter­na­tion­al ac­claim; Erik Anderson and Jamie Malone of Brut, both form­er Food & Wine-honored chefs; Amy Thielen, host of the Food Network's "Heartland Table" and 2014 James Beard Award Win­ner; Doug Flick­er of Pic­co­lo and Sandcastle; Jim Chris­tian­sen of Heydey and on the cov­er of the cur­rent Food & Wine as a 2015 "Best New Chef"; Landon Schoen­feld of HauteDish and Night­hawks; Niki Francioli, pas­try chef at La Belle Vie. For de­tails on the week­end or to book a res­er­va­tion, vis­it www.maddens.com/food-and-wine-weekend.html.

This sum­mer's American Girl mov­ie, "Grace Stirs Up Suc­cess," is based on the book se­ries by Minnesota au­thor Mary Ca­sa­no­va. The mov­ie, avail­able this week from Uni­ver­sal Studios Home Entertainment on Blu-ray and DVD, fol­lows Grace Thomas, an avid bak­er who fol­lows her dream of start­ing a bak­ing busi­ness in Paris. The kitch­en theme has led to a part­ner­ship with Williams-So­no­ma for a line of American Girl-brand­ed bak­ing sets, uten­sils, food mix­es and a cook­book, avail­able this fall. In the mean­time, W-S stores are of­fer­ing a se­ries of cul­i­nary class­es for girls now through the end of the year. Classes are $30, lim­it­ed to 12 and suit­able for ages 8-12. Call your local Williams-So­no­ma store to sign up.

ABC's new min­i­se­ries "The As­tro­naut Wives Club" fol­lows the women mar­ried to America's first as­tro­nauts. But a fun side­light is see­ing the food they make, from Technicolor Jell-O molds to ba­con-wrapped oyst­ers to a tow­er­ing shrimp tree. Food styl­ist Emily Mar­shall talks to Bon Appétit about work­ing with vin­tage reci­pes. Be sure to click on the slide show, if only for the meatloaf deco­rat­ed in SpaghettiOs and pi­men­to olives. bit.ly/1JejhGD

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