Legally, everything is craft beer for now.

The court's opinion says that MillerCoors produces 70 million, and the article incorrectly attributed all of it to Blue Moon. They just misread the court's opinion.

 

Craft beer and good beer are not interchangeable. Good beer is a subjective description of sensory qualities. Craft is a description of a community linked by a common vision and, yes, common adversaries. Craft brewers, recognizing each other determine what is craft, not a bunch of beer snobs on a website. The craft community links may be growing strained by IP battles, by growing diversity among craft brewers eso in size, and by the sheer number of craft brewers. But for a host of very real reasons the distinction in the US between the craft community (including a brewery as big as BBC) and BMC remains important. That is true whether one cares for this silly lawsuit or not.

 

Cavedave

Feel free to collect data on the growth of fine beer. If people find that as useful as the craft beer data from BA, I am sure it will catch on.

 

This is what happens when the industry group labels "craft" based on ownership rather than anything to do with the production of the actual beer.

Empty marketing term? You bet.

Bring on the next RIS with cold-brewed coffee added post-fermentation but pre-forced-carbonation because coffee does'nt do well in hot wort (too bitter). When did they add the imported organic cocoa nibs hand picked by nearly naked Central American indigenous people? Shhh, that's a trade secret.

 

Legally labels are labels and vague is vague.. there is only beer you like and beer you dont that's all that matters.

 

Do you really care if its craft or not? Just make good beer at a good price and I will buy it.I dont care if you brew 100 cases or 1000000000 barrels


Enjoy

 

I think the term 'craft beer' should be reclassified as 'grundle beer' or 'fupa beer' because it would be hard for BudCoorsMiller to advertise due to the mildly offensive meaning. Craft bad...fupa goooood

 

As much as I love defending micro breweries against the BMC giants, in the end it doesn't really matter to me. Beer is beer, good beer is good beer, and bad beer is bad beer, regardless of who makes it or why. There's macro brewers that brew good beer, there's craft brewers that brew shitty beer, and there's craft breweries that are dicks, too. There's breweries that I like supporting in particular because they're awesome people that make awesome beer, and that's all there is to it.

 

This whole thing pissed me off from the beginning. If you liked the damned beer, then keep drinking it. So you now find out that it is made by Miller and you feel violated? If you are concerned about where your product comes from, then you should research it before buying it. I think the whole thing "I am drinking craft beer" is kinda douchie, but I do think I would have a laugh if I overheard someone drinking BM and telling his friends how much he is into "craft beer". Now that I would like.

 

To paraphrase a landmark court case- Craft beer is hard to define, but I know when I taste it.

 

They do seem to be getting a little "full of themselves" lately.

 

The whole craft term, really only has any application when asking a waiter / waitress in a restaurant what beers they have on tap or bottle (or can these days). You don't want them to waste their time or yours by rattle off their 10+ American Adjunct varieties and options but cut to the chase and tell me what craft (or pick your title of choice) beers, which may be none or just a few.

 

The reason there is no agreed meaning of "craft" as it pertains to beer is that people (us included) use the term for wildly different reasons that have little or nothing in common beyond being connected to beer.

Here are some of them:

1. The Brewers Association defines it in terms of the brewers they represent in their political activity, their marketing, and their programs. They focus on size and ownership, since these are important distinguishing characteristics in what laws and regulations they favor or oppose and in what programs are useful to those they represent. While non-craft brewers (using the BA definition) are members of the BA, the BA does not truly represent their interests.
2. Those who view craft as a movement or as a representation of what is good and pure. These people clearly separate the good guys from the bad guys and tend to focus on "community", "vision", and "advesaries" (see the post by @lordofthemark). In general, they tend to find the BA definition useful since it clearly delineates the good guys from the bad guys.
3. Those who view craft as a market segment. That is, the market segment that prefers a more substantial taste in their beer compared with light lagers. This marketing view is why beers like Blue Moon exist. This is a consumer product focused view. This view is focused on the product characteristics as preferred by the customer in this market segment. Even BA-approved "craft brewers" engage in this view of the market.

There are more ways of looking at what "craft" means, but this post is already TL.

 

Am I the only one that is sick of people using the term "craft"? Who cares what technically is or isn't "craft" beer. Good beer is good beer, bad beer is bad, and there are a hell of a lot of "craft" beers out there that barely make the mediocre camp. We all know it. "Craft Beer" has been a meaningless term for a decade, and now the law recognizes that too. Stop calling beer "craft" and start talking about what it is you like or dislike about each specific beer/brewery. Hipster beer enthusiasts are so hell-bent of categorizing everything and throwing terms around like crazy. "Style" is the other one. There's no such thing as a "Belgian Style" - it either was made in Belgium or wasn't. Go there and talk about what makes Belgian beer, Belgian beer, and you'll have 4000 answers (one for every beer brewed there) - nobody talks about style, they say "I like Orval, but I dont like Leffe" or they say "Chimay is okay, but I prefer Westmalle". So drop the concern about "craft" and "style" and enjoy what you like to enjoy already!

 

Hear hear.

 

Hear hear.

 

Small has a more easily recognizable quantifiable meaning, so I think "small batch" could probably be left for brewers under a certain yearly output level.. And craft might be a marketing term, but Im not sold that small batch is. Certainly its used for marketing, but that doesn't make it solely "empty" marketing.

 

What exact quantity limit does it refer to? And does it matter to you? My point is that it’s now too often used as a fluffy marketing term to infer a level quality rather than some factual descriptor of production yield. Since there’s plenty of crappy small batches of beer out there, it’s useless IMO.

 

This only means that MillerCoors had better attorneys than did Mr. Parent (what a shocker). Also, I believe this would only apply in the district in which it was opined (California?). As for me, I will continue to drink what I consider good beer.

 

If there is issue with the term craft, why don't we just go back to microbrews as the descriptive term then. It's the opposite of the macros/BMC so it works pretty darn effectively in communications. Heck, at most of the hole in the wall joints, the wait staff/bar tenders still call 'em microbrews even to this day.