Craft beer

Craft beer and the necessity of remaining dynamic

Sorry. The conversation about what is craft beer just won’t go away, and Blue Moon Belgian White often ends up in there somewhere.

But, dang it, Dave Bailey (HardKnott Dave) proves there is still something new to be said when he asks “Is Blue Moon craft?” He walks us through a definition, examining if and how Blue Moon meets particular criteria.

A couple of weeks ago a brewer who used to work for a very large brewing company and now has started a very small one said, “Blue Moon might be the most important craft beer there’s been.” Read “Is Blue Moon craft?” and you’ll understand why.

In the half dozen years since I asked “Blue Moon: Peter, Paul & Mary or Trini Lopez?” craft beer sales have just about doubled (as have Blue Moon sales, in case you don’t consider them one in the same). I’m not sure how many million new drinkers that translates to, but a lot. Dave recognizes they’ve come for something new and leads us to a conclusion that’s been drawn before, but not as succinctly.

Of course, like many things that are new, it will one day be old. It might gain big market saturation. But then, many brands that we now might consider craft will in turn suffer this once they gain widespread acceptance.

This last point is important. The criteria create a sector which by definition must remain dynamic. Reinvention and a need to innovate and react is essential. A point that is not made explicit, but is inextricably implicit.

I’m a fan of reinvention and innovation. But given that I was once new, that now that I am old, and also that I like beers that are no longer new, I’m not sure I find this last thought all that cheery.

‘Craft’ beer: A little compare and contrast

Curious timing. Pete Brown has a thoughtful post today titled “Two contrasting responses to the growth of craft beer from two different big brewers.”

And yesterday, although I only noticed it today via Twitter, DRAFT magazine posted a profile of Keith Villa that I wrote for the the current issue: “Being Keith Villa.”

Brown’s story is not easily summarized, so I won’t try. It’s a Big Picture think piece. Here’s a paragraph from near the end. It hope it motivates you to read the whole story.

Talking to the guys who run this, there’s a philosophy of enlightened self-interest. It’s only going to work if it’s done right – and that means not doing it the MC (Molson Coors) way. But if it’s done well, it might just create a halo effect that makes people think a little bit more of beer in general, in relation to wine and other drinks. And that would, ultimately, help the rest of the MC business.

Villa, of course, works for MillerCoors (a joint venture between SABMiller and Molson Coors). Fast Company recently had a story explaining how “MillerCoors Took Taste Out Of The Equation And Made Cold Unique” (Subhead: “MillerCoors knew that nothing distinguished its marquee beer from the competition. So it made something up.”)

But the breweries in its Tenth and Blake division — including Villa’s baby, Blue Moon, as well as AC Golden and Leinenkugel’s — they focus on flavor. And their sales are booming.

Were the beer world only that simple.

The craft beer conundrum: What does it mean?

Beer on the mindI looked up the word conundrum to make sure I was using it appropriately (a question or problem having only a conjectural answer). I already knew I couldn’t look up “craft beer” – thus the conundrum.

We’ve debated the challenge of defining craft beer in this blog and maybe 80 percent of those listed to the right, as well as at Rate Beer, Beer Advocate, the Real Beer community and in at least 1,387 American brewpubs. Good bar talk – as witnessed by the scores of comments in the most recent discussion started by Lew Bryson.

A lot of good – and important – reading, but I don’t see a succinct definition emerging. It’s pretty obvious that debating the meaning of craft beer could occupy an entire semester of Beer Philosophy 101 and still there’d be no conclusion.

I can live with that. I spent a good portion of my working life as a copy editor and supervising copy editors. Writing and editing is a lot easier when you’ve got a dictionary to fall back on. And have I little choice but to use the term craft beer in some stories that I write. I just did a quick search in a story I filed last week for New Brewer, the publication that goes to Brewers Association members, and I see I used the phrase three times. In all three cases, even though the definition is imperfect, no other would have worked as well.

So perhaps whenever I type craft beer here I should include a link to the 50th comment, posted by Mr. Bryson himself.

The real subject is beer, or as Lew writes the beer in the glass.

Which takes us back to where the discussion started, a Anheuser-Busch Beach Bum Blonde Ale tasting note, and Lew’s column earlier in the month about the benefits of tasting beer blind.

I have this blog with a name – that to many people doesn’t exactly make sense – predicated on the idea that where your beer comes from (way before it gets in your glass) and how it is made changes what is in the glass and how you feel about it. So I think it’s OK to give extra points (were we scoring the beer – which of course we don’t do around here) to New Belgium Mothership Wit beer because it’s organic or because of the brewery’s commitment to sustainability or because you like bicycles.

But you are shorting yourself if you don’t objectively evaluate what’s in the glass. That means you don’t give a brewer you like a pass when he or she conjures up a below average beer. It means that if you see a good reason to try a beer from a brewery you’re not a fan of that you give yourself an honest chance to like the beer.

Craft is not a synonym for good or an antonym for evil empire.

I started to write a comment to meet Lew’s request to describe the “characteristics (of craft beer) that you can see, taste, and smell in the glass” before I realized (d’oh) the description wasn’t about craft beer, but just beer itself.

What is craft beer?

Growth chart
Don’t expect me to answer that question. It was posed by Stonch at Lew Bryson’s Seen Through a Glass, and I started to comment there before I realized I was about to exceed a sensible length for comments.

The Brewers Association has a specific definition (scroll down on that page):

CRAFT BEER: Craft beers are produced with 100% barley or wheat malt or use other fermentable ingredients that enhance (rather than lighten) flavor. Craft beers only come from craft brewers.

And …

CRAFT BREWER: An American craft brewer is small, independent and traditional. Craft beer comes only from a craft brewer.

So when the Brewers Association collects data and reports 11.7% growth in 2006 over 2005 it isn’t including beers from Yuengling, all-malt beers from Anheuser-Busch, Blue Moon from Coors and many others.

Over time that’s made compiling and comparing numbers a little easier. For instance, had the BA (then the IBS) included Michelob Specialty beers in its calculations in the late 1990s then craft beer sales would have appeared to take a giant leap of (a guess) 800,000 barrels in 1997. We would have been comparing apples to oranges. The number is a guess because A-B never released figures for its specialty beers. In other words, the BA/IBS couldn’t have included them anyway.

Likewise, Coors does not report sales of Blue Moon Belgian White. Except in 2005, when they confirmed production of 200,000 barrels (more than the entire production of all but six craft breweries). They haven’t made a similar revelation this year, but I’ve heard from somebody – not at Coors, but who should know – that sales more than doubled to 500,000.

Just for fun, let’s plug that into the chart above, increasing both the 2005 and 2006 figures and then doing the math. Presto. Growth of more than 16%. Does that difference matter? Probably.

That’s the equivalent of nearly 7 million cases of Blue Moon that people are grabbing at the grocery store or convenient store, often from shelves where few craft beers land. If those drinkers are anything like everybody else who drinks craft beer – and remember these people (who may be you) are paying a premium price for Blue Moon, haven’t read the BA definition, and (poor fools) think it is craft beer – then they are going to try other beers that cost more and aren’t advertised on television.

This is not a new discussion. Fred Eckhardt wrote a great column on this subject 10 years ago in All About Beer magazine. He began with a definition from Vince Cottone written in 1986 (less confusing times, perhaps).

Cottone, the first to use the term, “craft brewer,” was implacably uncompromising in what he meant by that name. “Craft brewery,” he said, “describe(s) a small brewery using traditional methods and ingredients to produce a handcrafted, uncompromised beer that is marketed locally (and is) True Beer.” He also listed seven other small brewers as brewing “non-true” beers, including San Francisco’s Anchor (although a “craft brewery in spirit,” its beer was pasteurized), and six other small brewers who brewed malt extract beer. He had no patience whatever with “contract brewers.”

Eckhardt polled beer industry types in an effort to define “craft beer” and got answers that went beyond that. All of them are worth reading. For balance I suggest lingering words from Tom Schmidt of Anheuser-Busch:

I don’t believe there is anything such as “craft beer.” The use of the term may lead consumers to believe that beer made in some small, quaint place is much better than beer that is produced in a large, efficient brewery, where quality and consistency are the hallmarks. We all fight the same battle using the same raw materials. These supposedly “craft breweries” are finding that, to produce consistent products, they require process controls much the same as the larger breweries. Our brewmasters are (dedicated) “craftsmen,” not just brewing “engineers” who monitor the process from afar. Just because we are successful should not detract from the fact that we are also quality “craftsmen.”

But I confess that my favorite is from Greg Noonan of Vermont Pub & Brewery:

I wish that Vince Cottone had trademarked the term. (He would be) a good arbiter of what is and what isn’t “hand-made.” (He would reject) beers made in “micro-industrial” quarter-million barrel breweries and “fruit beers” made with 0.003 percent fruit-flavored extract. (If Congress were to legislate an appellation, the licensing board should include) Cottone, Carol Stoudt, Randy Reede and Teri Fahrendorf (to ensure) its integrity. Craft brewed (should) mean pure, natural beer brewed in a non-automated brewery of less than 50-barrel brew length, using traditional methods and premium, whole, natural ingredients, and no flavor-lessening adjuncts or extracts, additives or preservatives.

Yes, there are breweries using automation and producing beers I’d call “craft” with a brew length longer than 50 barrels, so feel free to quibble. But not with the spirit in which his definition was written.