In alphabetical order.
The C word would be craft.
The L word would be local.
The Q word would be quality.
Can the three co-exist? Certainly. Must they? This is the part where my head starts to hurt.
Exhibit A: “Will a bunch of terrible craft beer ruin the booming craft beer industry?” It would have been a little easier to follow if the writer had made a clearer distinction between quality and quality control, but hang in there.
Exhibit B: “The future of the craft beer industry and its ability to provide quality and variety could hinge on this.” In which guest columnist Greg Engert writes, “New influences are afoot, and perhaps none is more pervasive or more limiting than the drink-local movement.” (My emphasis.)
Engert adds this:
Now, the desire to drink local brews has reached a fever pitch, often blinding publicans and craft beer drinkers alike from what should ultimately guide our choices: Is the beer of the highest quality? Is it bereft of off-flavors? Is it delicious? In short, is it superlative and memorable?
Wait, so now quality isn’t enough? It must be of the highest quality? And aren’t there times when a beer that does not demand to be memorable, and duly entered in Untappd, better aids and abets memorable conversations or experiences?
I appreciate the importance of quality (and quality control). In the All About Beer’s “People Issue” on newsstands right now my contributions are profiles of Gary Spedding (Brewing and Distilling Analytic Services) and Alastair Pringle (who consults with food companies and breweries on all things quality). Conversations with those guys are a reminder you need to know what you are doing, but Q and QC are perfectly doable.
Which brings me to the part I really care about. Local beer makes life better. It made our 14-month road trip in 2008 and 2009 better, when it was local and we weren’t. Roger Baylor argues the matter more eloquently than I do, so I suggest reading, “The PC: Anti-local craft beer unconsciousness, revisited.” He makes it clear “buying local is important both in non-beer terms, and in the specific way it impacts the craft beer ethos.”
I was going to quote him further … but you really need to read the whole thing. (I’d call it a “must read” but I don’t want any more shit from @thebeernut.)
See, the “wide variety of wants, needs, and experiences” part offers up just-as-valid paths beyond “drink local.” What’s wrong with “drink local as circumstances present themselves” or “drink local when you want to” or, or, or… There are a lot more local beer options where I live now than there were ten years ago… but a huge part of my discovering things happened ten years ago, and should I not give my business to those various breweries across the border that brew beer that tastes just as good now as it did then? My local brewpub has dipped in consistency — what to do? The sheer number of new L offerings far exceeds what is healthy for body, mind, and wallet — what to do? I’ve lived in many places and traveled — do I not take advantage of beers I’ve had there when they appear in my current neck of the woods?
Surely Baylor realizes that he’s created a straw man or cadre of straw men and women — who is saying that local beer can’t be as good as non-local beer? That “minority of self-identified craft beer opinion shapers” is so small as to be negligible. And surely he realizes that so long as all the beer being brewed in his region gets sold, his goal is achieved whether or not folks are drinking it for the “wrong” reasons, right? And, finally, surely he realizes that his motives in this aren’t pure — he’s trying to sell all he makes. He has a vested interest in getting folks around him to drink local. We can debate the wisdom of not only posting an entry where he insults the folks who feel differently than he does, but _re-posts_ it! I believe the folks who meet his description of “belonging to a shadowy sect of narcissistic beer enthusiasts” are few and far between… but the folks who might not be drinking local beer for other reasons sure might think he’s talking about them.
Bill – My observations, so mostly anecdotal, indicate that reasonable is winning. So people are balancing well made beers that give them pleasure for a variety of reasons (they’ve had them before and like them, they are new and interesting and don’t disappoint, they are local).
However, Engert is getting a pretty prominent platform at Esquire, so I’m OK with Roger being a bit unreasonable (I think his blog use to have “Extremism in defense of good beer is no vice” in the header) to make a point.
As far as I’m concerned, everything is subordinated to quality, or rather, my perception thereof; and that includes local. If a local brewery doesn’t make a beer I will want to drink, I will not buy it, I will not support that business. Why should I? Fortunately, that’s not the case where I live, and I’m happy to support my “local” brewery, which makes great beer, with business and more.
That being said, shouldn’t good be good enough? Greg Engert’s search for the outstanding and the memorable is foolish. It’s putting yourself in a position where you will likely be disappointed. Does any sensible person really want to live like that? Let’s embrace the good, praise the good, because that makes the outstanding all the more valuable.
Can we move on to the failings of big craft soon? Shelf staleness alone should make the long supply chain problem worthy of a BA backed press release. Surely that’s coming next, right?
I’d venture that you’ll find a lot less stale-tasting beer from the two biggest of “big craft” – Sierra Nevada and Samuel Adams – on the shelves than from most local or regional breweries.
In my world quality trumps both local and craft.
If I have a choice between Pilsner Urquell and a locally made Bohemian style pilsner that just gets it all wrong and wants to charge me $6 a pint, then I will spend my money on the SABMiller product every single time.
Like Max above, I am lucky to live in a part of the world, in this case Virginia, that has some excellent brewers knocking out quality iterations of the kind of beers I love to drink, Devils Backbone Vienna Lager, Three Notch’d Ghost Pale Ale, Starr Hill Dark Starr Stout, etc. However, that’s not to be oblivious to the weeds in the garden, there are some breweries in this neck of the woods that are making foul beers that should be poured down the drain rather than down a customer’s throat for a profit.
Ultimately, without a commitment to quality, with process as much as ingredients, independent brewers have less chance to be taken seriously. Sure you can chuck unusual ingredients in your small batch brews, but you’ll only end up in a cycle of constant pandering to an echo chamber of a small minority of drinkers, rather than producing the kind of beers that more people want to drink often and lots of.
I should add a caveat there though that when I am on my travels I want to drink local beer more than anything else, but I want quality local beer.