Friday 13 September 2024

A sinking craft

Over the past decade or so there have been endless discussions around the subject of trying to define “craft beer”. Was it a question of the style of the beer, the nature of the ingredients, the size of the plant making it, whether it was free from control of big corporations, the socio-political stance of the brewery? Or maybe some kind of intangible combination of all these factors. While it was often a case of “you know it when you see it”, it was impossible to pin down a watertight definition.

I recently came across an interesting blogpost from Jeff Alworth about how the concept of “craft beer” has effectively now become misleading and redundant.

“Craft beer” is a conceptual cul de sac. We started using it with good intentions, but with a naïveté about how brewing works and how markets function. It now causes more trouble than it’s worth. I don’t have any problem with the Brewers Association using the terms in their marketing—I certainly would if I were them—but we should recognize it for what it is. I encourage members of the media to consider using different language. It will make us all understand beer better.
He also says:
It is very important for both the health of a market and for the culture of beer to have small family breweries. They don’t have to cater to lowest common denominator tastes. They develop new styles and preserve old traditions from the ravages of industrialization. I am a giant fan of little breweries!

But they are just breweries. They just make beer. And, for what it’s worth, big breweries also just make beer. In using the “craft” framework, I think people got into the habit of thinking that what happened in large plants was some kind of industrial-scale chemical synthesis, not brewing. That was wrong as well, and led to other misconceptions.

Any attempt to arbitrarily sort breweries into sheep and goats is doomed to failure. If you deliberately choose only to drink beer from small breweries, or from breweries who take a particular public political stance, that’s up to you. But don’t pretend it’s actually anything to do with the nature of the beer in the glass. It’s all shades of grey rather than black and white.

It was often implied in the early days of CAMRA that real ale came from small artisanal breweries and was made from wholesome natural ingredients, whereas keg beer was made from chemicals in plants resembling oil refineries. It was an appealing myth, but that’s all it ever was, and exactly the same is true today.

It is also important to remember that there is a significant differences between the US and UK beer markets, which means that what applies to one doesn’t necessarily read across to the other. In the US, virtually all smaller independent breweries had disappeared, whereas in this country we still had a stratum of established family breweries together a newer real ale producing microbrewery sector. Indeed the basic premise of the British craft movement, at least at first, was that it was about interesting beer that wasn’t real ale. They presented themselves as primarily tilting against not the giant corporations, but “real ale culture”.

The US retains a number of substantial craft breweries that have grown up in recent years and comprise the leading members of the Brewers’ Association. By contrast, in this country, most of the leading brands that are considered craft are now owned by major corporates, with the exception of BrewDog, who in a sense have become more gamekeeper than poacher anyway.

I also get the impression in this country that the appreciation of craft beer became linked to a much greater degree to a specific social identity, giving rise to the characteristically British derision directed at the “craft wanker”. Of course many people who don’t conform to this stereotype do drink craft beer, just as you don’t need to have a beard and beer gut to enjoy real ale, but it has certainly established itself in the public consciousness.

14 comments:

  1. There are still people who cling to the 'chemical' myth, but to be fair, some mass-produced beers and lagers do contain chemical additives such as the foam stabiliser Propylene Glycol Alginate and colouring Ammonia Caramel (unrelated to true caramel), and have been produced using yeast nutrients like Diammonium Phosphate, although many smaller brewers are no stranger to the latter. It's also the case that mass produced beers and lagers more often than not have their grain bill supplemented by cheaper adjuncts like high maltose syrup, maize extract, rice flour and corn syrup, all of which assist the high gravity brewing method most of them are produced with.

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  2. Craft beer = Identitical cloudy IPAs reviewed weekly for the past decade by The Beer Nut.
    Simples.

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    1. John is a top fella, but I do have my beer related disagreements with him most notably the idea that every red shaded coloured ale from Ireland is bitter. Given that most are malt dominant ales with low levels of hopping I would argue they are mild ales.
      Oscar

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    2. Yes, Oscar, while the Beer Nut is at the complete opposite end of the blogging spectrum (I blog pubs, he does beer), I have a lot of respect for his enthusiasm for his topic and his consistency over many years.

      On the topic, Mrs RM would say "craft" beers are the ones dispensed from taps rather than pumps, often cooler and generally much stronger than cask.

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  3. Craft beer. Brewed by wankers to be drunk by wankers in wanker bars and tastes like wank.

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    1. Never had that pleasure. But I understand it is high in protein.

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  4. To most regular consumers it means a specific beer style. Cloudy, heavily hopped with the citrus American variety and high alcohol. 2 out of the 3 still makes it craft. The brands are Brewdog and Beavertown. The boxes are a couple of quid more than normal beer and a bit of an acquired taste, but you get one if you're having a do to cover all bases of tastes and your bit of a wanker brother-in-law.

    To enthusiasts it means what they want it to mean and that includes a small brewery, a brewer led business, progressive, dare I say it "woke" values, a shared love of experimental beer and definitely not in for the cash. Selling out is apostate. By its nature it attracts degree educated managerial middle-class people. As this is mainly privileged white blokes, safe nonchallenging diversity means people of colour or none hetro-norm sexualities of their own social class, privilege and values.

    Much of the debate around it is not really about whether it’s a decent innovative development that has brought something of value to market. Whether consumers are better off for having it as an available choice at the price point it hits. It is really about the politics of the minority hobby of beer enthusiasm. Dominated by an aging CAMRA, a new generation of beer geeks with much the same vanities but more international attitudes to those conceits proved both an opportunity and threat. An opportunity to acquire new blood and a threat that real ale would be replaced by kegged craft ales. On that score, CAMRA failed to take the opportunity to refresh its ranks whilst encouraging a market of inconsistent commodity beers to dominate much of the sector leaving the mainstream market entirely to lager. They turned real ale into a homebrew cottage industry and consumer gamble.

    Craft sits now as a passing fad still enjoyed by enthusiasts. In its passing it diminished the cask market and also diminished the authentic foreign beer market, turning both into a greater niche. A walk around the Norther Quarter of Manchester in and out of “craft” bars reveals the kids love Estrella Damm.

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    1. Good stuff - you really need to take up blogging again.

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    2. The lasting legacy of craft seems to be that very many pubs now have a hoppy "craft" IPA on keg, from either BrewDog or an offshoot of the international brewers. And will Neck Oil still be there in ten years' time?

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    3. I find the taste of Beavertown disgusting. I like my beer brewed with traditional English hops and Maris Otter malt.

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  5. I tend to think of craft as something a bit different from the normal lagers and John Smiths Extra Smooth type beers, probably not a 'real ale' and most likely made by a small brewery. Maybe a bit experimental in its design. Is that too simplistic? And for the record, I'd say Burning Sky are way out in front in producing what I'd call a decent 'craft' beer.

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  6. Barnaby Rothchild-Hamilton-Smythe15 September 2024 at 09:45

    It's very disappointing to see craft beer negativity. Making craft beer has been my dream ever since the chap I fagged for at Harrow opened one of these things with his monthly allowance and sold his brewery to Heineken through an off shore holding company and made a chunk of money he hadn’t even inherited. So gauche, so of today.

    What you need to realise is that there are more of us with dreams to start a brewery and we need you little people to support our dreams with the hard earned money you get from doing things like jobs and the like. You need to pay more for your craft beer to ensure we build high margin brands the global brewers knocking out low margin brands find desirable to acquire.
    Without you little people the only route I would have to that apartment in Dubai is asking Daddy for the money.

    Lets have more craft beer positivity! You are better people for paying more to drink the weird slop I’ll churn out. Only the true discerning are able to get in down them without gagging. Beer people are good people and you can be if you punt up for it!

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  7. If craft beer is in decline, it is because it was made affordable to all in supermarkets.

    There needs to he a form of beer that is unaffordable to most and the sole preserve of the beer elite who are better than everyone else.

    We need the ability to sneer at the plebs through the medium of beer.

    Are we a civilised country without it?

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  8. Craft brewing is brewing good beer consistently and year round, none of that seasonal drinking rubbish, be it Bathams, Theakstons, HB, Fürsch, O’ Hara’s red ale, dry single and double stouts, Pilsner Urquell, Orval, Westmalle and all the other Trappists, Cask Bass and dare I say it Guinness Foreign extra in all its varieties.
    Oscar

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