How important is being "Craft" really?

And that's a great big gigantic shame, but it's really the BA's fault for choosing to use the word 'craft' in the first place. They went and made a big deal about size, and really should have seen that outcome as inevitable.

 

The phrase "quality suffers" appears in the post that led to this sub thread and is used in the context of the idea of expansion/growth leading to inevitable decline in quality.

 

Among some, but not others. And if a growing majority continue to appreciate does it really matter what a vocal minority have to say? Beer is a luxury item not a human right.

 

Sure, but so what? Those who hate on Sam Adams, Stone, DFH, etc. are a minority of the 5000 who bother to post. Those who post are a vocal minority of the 400,000 or so who are members here. Those who are members here are a minority of those who buy and drink flavorful beers. So what if 500 BAs vocally state a preference for Hill Farmstead and hate on SA? It helps Hill grow and isn't even a ripple in the SA balance sheet or the quality of their beers. :-)

(And most people on here will continue to make up their own minds.)

 

It kicks in when the demand far exceeds their ability to deliver. For now, it may be within reasonably controllable means. But at some point, unless they up the manpower, their ability to harvest larger quantities with discerning eye, very tight control in their facilities without lowering the capability of each worker (and let's be honest, your employees will never come close to your own abilities to judge quality), then either they turn away from rapid growth and let go of the potential to make more money, or they move ahead faster than they are capable of churning out good stuff. But in my own personal obervation, very few companies turn down the potential to make bigger money just cause they're not up to speed, they will tend to try and cut corners, especially with outside investors involved. I don't know the business structure of a company like Founders, but if their expansion comes with big funding, and that financier is hungry, it's not likely they will keep a slow pace going for long. They will ramp it up, with consequences.

 

Good point you guys make. If what people are worried about is the creativity or expression of an individual's beer making, that his 'artwork' would become tarnished. But I do feel that over a long period of time, especially in order to make a buck, priority starts to weigh in on the mass production and money, at the expense of so called 'ethical' beer making or 'high standards', etc... I tried to reillustrate my points responding to @drtth earlier.

 

no, but it does matter to me who makes the beer, how they treat employees, how they contribute to beer culture (and society) at large, etc.

but whether or not some organization calls it "craft", no i don't care. i would keep buying sierra nevada even if they grew bigger than AB, assuming they somehow got that big without sacrificing ethics and quality. and i'd keep not buying beer from small, talented brewers if i heard from reliable sources that they mistreated labor in their company / endorsed things i strongly disagree with "politically," etc etc.

i know this bothers some people, but happily i don't care about that either.

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edit: full disclosure, as hinted at a bit above, i don't think the chances of growing an order of magnitude larger than, say, boston beer company, and avoiding the less savory qualities of capitalism are very high. it's kind of a fantasy to think that you can grow super big and stay the same. if it were that easy, government would be easy too, and it would be easy to stay out of wars, and easy to live without crime, etc etc etc etc etc.

 

Not that it's indication that they lost their ability to be reviewed with praise, but some people feel that things don't always remain constant. See @cavedave below (sorry to drag your post in here cavedave ).

 

It's always intriguing to me how it's the brewery or the beer that is "different from last year."

Personally, I find that I am not the same person I was 1-2-3 or 10 years ago. My tastes have changed, my interests have changed and some of my views as to what is quality or important, and why, have changed. There was a time in my life when on a trip to Brussels I'd never have spent the better part of two different Saturdays doing self-guided tours just to look at and try to sort through equipment and processes used at a 100+ year old brewery with a silly name like Cantillon, including sitting around their tasting room drinking and thinking about such foul tasting beverages as Gueuze, Kriek, or year old, room temperature Lambic drawn moments before directly from one of those those stained ugly previously used wine barrels with foam that had dried on the sides of the barrel and around the bung hole.

 

I am willing to accept that every CBS I have had since keg only has not declined in quality, Devils Dancer is the beer it was, KBS is the beer it was, Double Trouble is the beer it was, and the other special/seasonal release series have all been the way they were, or new offerings equivalent in quality to their previous releases. However, I don't think so, all these offerings have gone down in quality while going up greatly in price, and I know quite a few who agree. I believe it isn't some case of poor memory or evolving palate, and since I have no prejudice against large breweries, I believe it is a case of a brewery declining in quality, coincidentally and concurrently with it growing greatly in size.

 

It also needs to be mentioned that growing bigger doesn't mean taking all the exact same systems and duplicating their sizes and dimensions exactly to produce X times more beer. It doesn't mean using the exact same yeast as you did when you were small, it means likely purchasing greater qualities and relying on house cultures in order to afford and have enough yeast to use. Even the grain you use will possibly be different as you buy train cars and store in silos instead of bags stored on palates. Even the crush will be different as you use industrial size equipment to manage tons instead of pounds of grain. Even the water could be different when greatly increased amounts are needed and used. And, of course, when you get bigger more and different "chefs" are needed to "cook" the food, not always with the skill or palate of the original "chef".

All these things can and do have impact on a recipe as it is scaled greatly up (or down). While I agree that palates can change and memories too, those things run up against the facts that changes to quality and taste can occur when systems are different than they were.

 

Craft as a term was successful in the US because it defined and sold good beer as an affordable luxury compared to the BMCs. It filled a void in the market.

The way it has gotten so hung up on barrel counts and ownership kind of ignores why the term was so successful in the first place. All that should matter is a commitment to good beer with good ingredients. When brewers like Founders, Elysian and Goose Island are no longer considered craft the term just starts to look silly.

 

So it seems there are at least two separate and separable issues floating around in this sub thread. Two of them being the impact of growth on product quality and the impact of growth on producing an 'ethical' product.

Since there are examples of growth with continued quality product and/or continued 'ethical' product outside of the beer world just as there are examples of quality decline and/or ethical decline with growth outside the beer world, my point is and has been that growth, in and of itself does not inevitably produce or maintain long term changes in either product quality or ethicality.

Will there be changes taking place with growth? Absolutely. Will there be changes in people's perception with growth? Absolutely. However, my point is that whether those changes include decline (or growth) in product quality and/or ethicality will be a result of other factors at work during a time of change and adaptation to change that can and does have an effect regardless of whether that change includes growth or not, I.e., those increases/declines can happen in the absence of growth as well.

 

So you completely rule out the dramatic growth and availability of flavorful beer and good breweries in your immediate area with the effects that has on freshness as having an effect on your perceptions of the quality and price of "imports?"

 

No question that scaling up a recipe can impact the beer. Perhaps there are recipes that simply can't be scaled up successfully. But some would argue that DFH has both managed to grow almost explosively and still managed to maintain quality of its core flagship line up. Indeed some would suggest their current line up of flagship beers is a better set of offerings than it was even 5-6 years ago. So I would suggest, as I was in the beginning of this sub thread, that decline in quality is not an inevitable effect of increase in size.

 

Of course it matters. Why would you be here if it didn't?

 

Jack

I agree that in addition to the word craft we need dusting within craft. Based on size, and scope of distribution, and perhaps number of distinct facilities. BA uses regional vs microbreweries based only on size, but I can see going forward where that is not a fine enough distinction.