“Don’t Drink Craft Beer”

“Don’t Drink Craft Beer”

Before you start bashing me on the title of this post alone, you should know that this I am merely using a statement boldly directed towards me on Saturday evening while in a London boozer as I placed my order for (ironically) a pint of cask ale. [I would also like to point out that I am a huge lover of what we now refer to as ‘craft beer’.]

Following my attendance at the annual CAMRA Twickenham Beer Festival (one of the many local festivals run by CAMRA, celebrating cask ale) I staggered and swayed to a nearby pub to continue with what was already a good session of cask ales. The pub in question has (in my opinion) a great selection of both cask ales, craft beers and for those who insist on them still, mass produced lagers. Upon making my decision to order what would prove to be a beautiful cask ale from of all people, an American brewer. Who’d of thought it? It was then that a middle aged gentleman approached the bar, dressed in a pinstriped suit and tie, neatly combed hair and overly polished shoes. If he’d introduced himself as the local Conservative MP I would not have doubted him for one second. This rather construed judgement on my part is really neither here nor there. However, he simple introduced himself to me with a loud instruction – “Don’t drink craft beer!” This rather shrewdless statement threw me for a second. Why was this well groomed stranger telling me this? After all, I was about to be drinking (like him) a cask ale. Maybe it was the hipsteresque flat cap I was modelling? Who knows? I decided I would indulge the woozy stranger and so I asked him ‘Why ever not?’ His answer was simply ’They’re all pasteurised’. Well he had me. Or did he? While there was some truth in this eccentric’s decision making, there seemed to be some misunderstanding in his romantic attachment to his traditional cask ales. Yes, many so called craft beers are pasteurised for one reason or another, but many craft breweries choose not to pasteurise their delicious brews. Moreover, while most cask ales will not be pasteurised, some of course will be when necessary.

I could ramble on even more about the reasons for, the pros, the cons, the arguments for and arguments against pasteurised beer but that was not actually what I intended to address. The question that I really wanted to ask my new found friend was this –

What is Craft Beer?

This is a term that is getting cast around more and more. It is a term that I am guilty of using daily when discussing beer and yet I have struggled to define exactly what it is. The term craft beer was born or at least popularised in USA and refers to beer produced in small batches by microbreweries, brewed using traditional methods. As the craft beer revolution has grown and spread globally, endless amounts of these microbreweries have popped up wherever there are enough eager beer lovers to support them. The birth of the microbrewery has undoubtedly raised the standard of beers being produced to levels never seen (or tasted) by the younger generations. No longer are we forced to choose between just a few mass produced watery lagers that have been made by huge (money hungry) establishments with very little care of the end product. Brewing has once again been established as a craft, and rightly so.

As some of the microbreweries grow in popularity, size and volume of craft beer produced they will at some point brew so much beer per year that they simply cannot be considered a microbrewery any longer. I refer to the likes of BrewDog in the UK and Stone in USA. As these breweries produce more and more beer have they lost their right to call what they do a craft?  Because they brew their beer in batches less than say the likes of Carling or Stella does that mean they are continuing with their craft?

Even the beer giants have tried to gate crash the craft beer scene by producing smaller batches of beer or ‘discovering’ a long lost recipe buried deep in the breweries archives, putting it in a bottle with a fancy label, inserting ‘craft’ in the beer name or description and by doing so exploiting what many have worked so hard to create. Do these even count as craft beers? Just about all craft beer advocates would argue until their favourite pub runs dry that these do not.

Then there are the noble ones. The breweries that can hold their head up high and say we survived through it all. I am referring to those breweries that did not sell out. They did not get bought out by one of the beer giants. They did not move from their original location to reduce costs. Those that remain proud of their history. The brewers that continued with their craft despite a growing culture of mass produced lagers. For me, the prime example of this (in the UK) is Fullers. Unlike previous London rivals Young’s, Fullers remain in London at their original brewing site. They are by no means a microbrewery but they are also far from being a mass producing beer giant. They continue to produce the same beers to a high standard that they always have. And these beers? Cask ales of course. So when London Pride was first produced following the Second World War would it have been considered a craft beer? By today’s standards maybe? As it continues to be produced today to the same standards, is it not a craft beer? I’m sure my suited friend and many of his generation would tell me that London Pride is not a craft beer but a cask beer. To the likes of my (possibly ignorant) self, London Pride is both. It is obviously a cask beer and produced to such a level that it can also be classed a craft beer.

What about if a cask beer is produced by a small, independent, microbrewery?  Can it then be classed as ‘craft beer’? For instance, London Fields Brewery produce a number of cask beers and they indeed refer to themselves as a craft brewery. If you were to take Fullers’ London Pride and London Fields’ Hackney Hopster and stand them side by side…you would have two cask ales and both very good cask ales in their own right. But would you have two craft beers?

So are all cask beers craft? Definitely not. Are all craft beers good? Doubtful.  Are all mass produced beers lower in quality? More often than not.

Craft is clearly a subjective term and people will disagree about whether some beers are in fact ‘craft’ or not. Any definition of what ‘craft’ is, is likely to be imperfect.

Intentionally or not, a revolution has been born on the back of the craft beer scene. A revolution that is far bigger than anybody could have foreseen and more important than any one single craft brewery. Men and women, young and old of all race and creeds are interested in beer again. What they drink says something about them. It is uniting people from all backgrounds with one common passion. A love of good beer.

*In an added note, below are the key guidelines that our friends at BrewDog believe a brewery should be made to abide by to in order to call their beer ‘craft’.

1) Is Small

Brews less than 500,000 HL annually. *see point 3 below
2) Is Authentic
a) brews all their beers at original gravity
b) does not use rice, corn or any other adjuncts to lessen flavour and reduce costs
3) Is Honest
a) All ingredients are clearly listed on the label of all of their beers.
b) The place where the beer is brewed is clearly listed on all of their beers.
c) All their beer is brewed at craft breweries.
4) Is Independent

Is not more than 20% owned by a brewing company which operates any brewery which is not a craft brewery.

 

Would these guidelines protect the craft beer scene from those pesky beer giants?