Brewers Association Defines "Quality Beer"

I've always just said I like "good" beer.

" Microbrew", "Craft", "Quality" we don't need more/new names.

There's good beer and there is shitty beer; period.

Is BMC "quality" by some of these new regulations, absolutely. Does it taste shitty, absolutely. Do some "craft breweries" produce shitty beer; absolutely.

It's just that not everyone can taste the difference and new "terms/agreements" will change that.

 

I don't know how to edit my reply in the App.

"Will NOT change that"

 

Well, if this is the Brewers Association, with voluntary members (?), striving for quality, that's fine.
If this is a power grab, and the first in many steps to control every aspect of the brewer's creativity and quality, that's not OK.

 

I've got a couple craft breweries I'd like to report for consistently failing to produce quality beer. What is the reporting procedure? Will the BA take on the burden of tracking and confirming infection / quality control reports?!?

 

Woo woo woo....If someone brews an all Maryland sourced beer using Maryland grown hops and Maryland grown barley and by chance it does not taste as good as another beer brewed using the best ingredient sourced from around the world, who then lays claim to a true American craft beer? Why can’t the consumer decide on quality and taste? Maybe some consumers would like the idea of supporting Maryland's agriculture and beer, despite the obvious quality differences in ingredients. What does it mean to act local and think global? The craft beer movement grew out of the idea of drink local, the industry should continue to encourage innovation, even if it does not "taste" as good as some people like.

 

It's hard to say for sure what the goal of this is. Craft beer has been a profitable market for a decent amount of time... When a market is profitable, more competition will enter the market, and unfortunately a lot of the breweries that have entered the market have done so to cash in on the current trend. However, with the "drink local" movement of the past few years, product quality has often been overlooked for the simple fact that people want to drink what's local, even if it's a subpar / amateur beer. It's frustrating (for me at least) going into a bar and seeing all local taps since more often than not, these breweries only have 1 (if that) worthwhile beer.

I think this definition is an attempt to distinguish breweries in the business for the right reasons from the breweries who took advantage of a profitable opportunity. In the long run, all of this will even out

 

I get why the Brewers Association is pushing for better quality from its membership. It is a good idea, but announcing it in a press release just produces a shite-storm.

 

The only breweries left in the US that are too large to meet the B.A.'s limit of "under 6 million barrels a year" for their definition of "Small" are Anheuser Busch and MillerCoors.

 

Quality beer = a beer with qualities?

 

This press release reminds me of why I began to completely ignore the Brewer's Association several years ago.

 

Agreed. The brewers Association is marketing group after all though and ambiguous yet official sounding bullshit is their specialty.

One can only hope. If Brewers Association wants to redeem itself and do something useful for the industry again they could create a basic standard for QA, product dating, etc. for all brewers to follow to a get a certification. Sort of like a brewery-specific ISO standard.

 

I forgot they redid that.

 

Way too much subjectivity in all those words. When I read the eh, em, "definition", my first thought was that BMC falls into this definition.

4th definition of the word "wholesome" as defined by Dictionary.com is "healthy or sound". Every other definition has healthy or a synonym for healthy in it, and since beer isnt' a "health food item", we have to relax "healthy" or disregard it altogether. This leaves us with "sound". BMC's follow FDA guidelines, I'm sure, for using "sound ingredients" based on their "FDA's) standards.

Let's look at responsible (stipulating that all other criteria are met). While several on here disagree with the buy outs that AbInbev and others partake in, and despite the long billing cycles to vendors (which still isn't illegal. Douchy, not illegal) they still have made strives in all the eco friendly stuff (even ABInBev distributors have to adhere to green practices), they are not mean to employees, and they are responsible to their stockholders. I see no way out in confirming that BMC's fall into the criteria, as defined by the B.A.

 

Why don't they just come out and say it.

There are beers we want to promote and some we do not. We will let you know which is which.

 

It is way too early to judge this initiative.

When the programs and guidelines are available, then there will be more clarity.

 

Wholesome? Like alcohol? Fuck yes I say, technically a poison my ass!

Sometimes I get too much wholesome in one night and I fall down.

 

Or it's laying the foundation to have another label for breweries that are only excluded from the "craft" label due to ownership issues. *cough* Founders! *cough*

So that way, if too many "craft" breweries sell more than a 25% stake, BA can ignore the fact that "craft" numbers didn't gain as much as they would have liked.

BA press releases of "Quality beer sales are up 5% in 2015!", instead of "Craft sales down in 2015. But only because too many breweries sold ownership stakes, not our fault!"

 

I'm going to hold out and hope that this will be an initiative to create a standardized set of quality assurance/quality control measures that all brewers should put into place, because it's long overdue. Even better would be if a brewer meets or exceeds those standards, the BA would would award them a quality certification, which the brewer could advertise on their products. I'm sure that the brewers who have invested in QA/QC would like to be recognized vs the the plethora of brewers out there who are not investing and QA/QC. The Brewers Association is probably best situated right now to take on this challenge, and based on statements from them and other prominent brewers this sounds like an important issue for them.

@sierranevadabill, because your boss, Mr. Grossman, is a co-chair for the BA technical comittee can you able to give any more information? Clearly, many people are assuming this is just another squishy marketing term the BA is using to arbitrarily pick winners and losers (like their "craft" definition). If there is more to it someone should set the record straight.

 

To be honest, I have zero to do with this, so don't have an insight here and am certainly not in these meetings, but knowing what Ken does for the BA... He is co-chair of the technical committee which concerns themselves with the science and engineering of beer making.
I don't think this has anything to do with the BA's definition of "craft" I think this is something different.
I believe that this is in regards to Paul Gatza's statement about a quality problem in craft beer. The technical committee is working to design tools to help brewers improve overall beer quality. Before they can do that, they first have to define their mission... In essence, what is quality? This is a typical exercise in designing a mission statement for an organization.
I have the impression that the craft definition and this quality definition are not related.

For what it's worth, there IS a quality problem in craft beer. If the technical committee and the quality subcommittee can help brewers identify and solve some quality issues, we as beer makers and us as beer consumers all win.

Again, this is speculation on my part, but knowing what I know of it, this is the impression I take away.

Bill

 

As Bill says, it has to be a follow up to the Paul Gatza statement at last years CBC.

Not many small breweries have a lab, or even rudimentary equipment. A pH meter? Many don't. A microscope? Many don't. An An Anton Parr beer analyzer, those are expensive, and you need someone to run it. A photospectrometer, same. Much of the QA/QC equipment can get expensive and you need space and staff to run it. Start ups often can't afford it.

There is the option of testing labs, but that cost money per each test per sample submitted.