John’s Grocery to feature in ‘Death of a Brewer’ film

This summer, a team of filmmakers and producers will create what could be Iowa’s biggest movie since “Field of Dreams.” 

“Death of a Brewer,” based on the book “Beer Money” by S.C. “Steve” Sherman, will soon start filming in Iowa City. 

Set in the 1880s, the film will follow Iowa City’s Northside brewers and the growing population of German, Czech and Irish immigrants they served. As the beer businesses boomed, the brewers gained a reputation and became known as the “beer mafia” — particularly by the leaders of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, who were persistent in abolishing the sale of alcohol. 

Iowa City is home to some of the richest beer brewing history in the country — and some of the first prohibition laws. The booming immigrant population and clashing values of the late 1800s shaped Iowa and the Midwest, with the John’s Grocery building at the center of the trouble. 

The history behind the beer

Though the store has its own history — opening in 1948 — the building at 401 E. Market St. is a century older, constructed in 1848.

Though John’s was not part of a brewery itself, it happens to be the only place where you can access Iowa City’s network of beer caves, which were dug for the Northside brewers in the mid-1800s for fermentation and lagering. Archeologists conducted research within the caves as recently as 2023, to see what tunnels were yet to be excavated. 

Doug Alberhasky is the third-generation owner of John’s Grocery, and executive producer of “Death of a Brewer.” For the past decade, he has given private tours of the beer caves under John’s to hundreds of Iowans — one of which happened to be author Steve Sherman. 

“One of the guys that went down was so enamored with the [caves], he ended up writing this,” Mr. Alberhasky said. “So Steve did a whole bunch of research, and really put everything into that book.” 

Although Mr. Sherman’s book is a work of historical fiction, Mr. Alberhasky said up to 90% is based on real-life events. The movie will only be about 70% accurate, in order to make it entertaining as well as historical. The screenplay was written and adapted by Mokotsi Rukundo, who is also set to direct. 

Mr. Sherman was not the only notable tourist who explored the beer caves. Actor William H. Macy — known for his role as Frank Gallagher in “Shameless” — ventured into the depths with Mr. Alberhasky in September 2024. They created a TikTok to share the visit, which went viral and accumulated more than 817,000 views. 

Iowa City’s three historic brewers include Union Brewing Company, JP Dostal Great Midwestern Iowa Brewing Company, and Englert City Brewing Company. The Englert family would go on to found another historic Iowa City landmark in 1912 — the Englert Theatre. 

“I love this fact: in 1857, Iowa City had three breweries and 40 bars for a population of 7000 people, which was awesome, because back then, you couldn’t drink the water because it could make you sick," Mr. Alberhasky said. "What people didn’t realize is that with the beer, you actually boil it to brew it, which kills all of the microbes that get you sick. But yeah, beer was everything.” 

Out of the three Northside brewers, Union Brewing Company is the only one with buildings that still exist. Today, this is where the Brewery Square commercial spaces are located at 123 N. Linn St. 

The Union Public House — a brewery-owned saloon of the time — also still stands at 203 N. Linn St. 

In Iowa City, the team will film inside John’s and the beer caves themselves, in front of other historic buildings like First United Methodist Church, St. Mary’s Catholic Church, and in Mr. Alberhasky’s home bar. Numerous other famous buildings will be featured, like the Old Capitol. 

Additional filming will take place in Dubuque; Quincy, Illinois; and Galena, Illinois, where the team has scouted for other buildings from the late 1800s. They are also eyeing the August Schell Historic Brewery in New Ulm, Minnesota, as a potential opening scene location. 

Brewing up funds 

Filming is set to begin in June, as long as the budget requirements are met in time. Much of the pre-production has been completed, thanks to the efforts of Mr. Rukundo, the screenwriter and debut-director. 

The filmmaker was born in Eswatini — then Swaziland — and moved to Iowa when he was 10 years old. He grew up in Iowa City and attended the University of Iowa for cinema, but moved to Los Angeles to further his career. 

However, he returned to write his first feature — “East of Middle West” — in 2021, which gained international acclaim at several festivals. He said that filming in Iowa was like playing with a home-court advantage and that he looks forward to filming “Death of a Brewer” with other Iowans. 

“I’ve always heard about the ‘Iowa kind.’ But not until you need it, do you really, truly experience it,” Mr. Rukundo said. “As much as I want there to be a film tax credit in Iowa, what the saving grace is, and it’s kind of hard to bank on, but the amount of things that we got just from the kindness of people wanting to help this film is what made it right.”

While filming, Mr. Rukundo encountered Mr. Sherman as an extra on set, who sent him an early copy of “Beer Money” to read. Though he didn’t pick it up at first, once he got a call from Mr. Alberhasky and Mr. Sherman asking him to write a screenplay, his interest was piqued by the storyline. 

“Now I’m thinking, like, ‘Gangs of New York’ meets ‘The Departed,’ but Iowa style. Or, that’s the hue that you’re trying to go for,” Mr. Rukundo said. “And once I read the book, Steve gave me the freedom to be able to make it a little bit more malleable for the screen, because he gave such a huge world…So once that happened, I kind of just used the playbook from how we raised money for ‘East of Middle West.’” 

Now, Mr. Rukundo commutes between Los Angeles and Iowa, working to drum up interest from investors in LA and recruit potential cast and crew. Mr. Alberhasky said they are eyeing Cary Elwes for the lead role of J.J. Englert — the heir to the Englert Brewery — but it all comes back to funding. 

The film’s total budget is set at $2 million. Mr. Alberhasky said they have raised $835,000 in local funds so far, and need an additional $300,000 to get out-of-state investors activated. 

He noted that because the movie will be shot and produced in Iowa, the cost will be much lower than if it was shot in Los Angeles. Their proof-of-concept short film — which can be viewed on the film’s website — was shot for a fraction of the price of an LA-based production.

“That was basically filmed in one day; we filmed it basically for under $10,000, and in LA, that would have been over $100,000,”  Mr. Alberhasky said. “We had 79 extras, and we just put a call out, and everybody showed up in perfectly period clothing, and it was pretty amazing. But that’s what we’ve been using to garner investment.” 

Mr. Rukundo said shooting the proof-of-concept was difficult, but that it came together in the end — and it gave him a better idea of what would be possible for the film as a whole. 

“We shot the proof of concept in Iowa City. And what’s really cool about that is it was a little bit of a taste to know that we could,” Mr. Rukundo said. “Granted, we had a little bit of a shoestring budget, because we were doing it in a day…but the goal of it was to be like, ‘This is what we can do with just a little, but did we make you feel something? Were you curious?’ As a creator, it’s always like, that quality. I think it’s really great quality for what we’re able to do, but for the scale that we’re trying to do it at, is way bigger.” 

Mr. Alberhasky is confident that once the film is made, the ROI will be high. Specifically, he aims to use modern-day brewers as a marketing method to offer screenings at thousands of breweries across the country. 

“The reason why we’ve had a lot of interest in Hollywood about the movie is the second thing: doing brewery releases, and this is guerrilla marketing at its best,” Mr. Alberhasky said. “Right now, there’s over 10,000 breweries in the United States. If we get a quarter of them to show the movie once to an average of 100 people, and we make $10 a head, we’ve paid off all our investors in one day.” 

Mr. Alberhasky said he would love to host a premiere at Big Grove in Iowa City, complete with a red carpet and limousines pulling up on South Gilbert Street. So far, the production plan predicts that the film will be released by spring 2026, though both Mr. Alberhasky and Mr. Rukundo noted that could change. 

“Having done it before in a different scope — because ‘East of Middle West’ was, it was a smaller scope — it feels big, but in terms of what my role was, it wasn’t directing, and producing was another thing in itself. But how I feel about it coming home to Iowa City, it feels right,” Mr. Rukundo said of working on “Death of a Brewer” so far. “There’s a certain energy and a magic on set too, that’s also a high in itself ... there’s no better feeling in the world. I feel so blessed because I’m doing what I love, and so with all that I mentioned, it’s just pure gratefulness for the opportunity. Any time you get to tell a story, it’s a gift.”