"Craft or crafty? Consumers deserve to know the truth"

Seems a fairly simple solution really. There is a concise definition out there for what constitutes a craft brewery, no? Put a very small logo on the labels of those beers made by those breweries that fit the craft definition that says 'craft', or maybe 'BA' (since it would most likely be the Brewers Association that would oversee and legally safeguard such labeling and could probably base the use of such a symbol on its own membership). Kind of like the dolphin-safe symbol, you know?
That way those that care can look for this symbol and know somebody has done the homework for them, and those that don't care just won't pay any attention to it.
I'll take no royalties for this idea, but donations are always welcome.

 

But, again, that's not the case when it's broken down by the amount of beer brewed in the US and the number of brewing industry employees.

Here's The Brewers Association claim (mentioned above):

Small brewers employ one person for every 1,000 barrels produced, and the big brewers employ one person for every 50,000 barrels produced.​

​

Small brewers may only have 5% of the U.S. beer market, but they provide 50% of the jobs. ​

Put another way, if AB or MC were to buy some little 20,000 barrel brewery that employs 2 dozen people and decide to close the place and continue to brew the brand at it's Baldwinsville, NY or Eden, NC brewery, it'd mean a loss of 24 jobs and probably just a reworking of the brewing scheduling at the macro brewery with no jobs created.

 

+1 For me, I was not surprised by any of the names on the list of brands owned by AB. But I had absolutely no idea about the magnitude of the difference in the jobs picture:

So the group with 6% of the volume employs more than 4x the number of the group with over 75% of the volume? That's amazing! It really is our patriotic duty to not buy BCBS!

 

Without putting words in kinopio's mouth, I'm guessing the issue is the same for him and I- it's not that they don't care anymore, it's that the decisions and such are no longer up to them.

They may care al the world, but if the assholes wearing suits that now OWN the brewery tell them they have to cut corners... they have to cut corners. If the asshole suits decide to contract everything out other than BCBS and lay off half the people currently working at the brewery... that's the deal.

Aside from that, regarding the direction of the specific reply from kinopio- I still find it more than a little suprising that people ask "why do you care where your money goes?" "Why do you care who you're supporting?"

Are some of us really THAT focused on simply being able to drink something we enjoy that we just don't care anymore?

 

I think it's universally recognized here that jesskidden knows his stuff and does his research.

Hence, even if you're only willing to believe that his numbers are half-accurate, I'd say the workforce number's he's provided MUST be eye opening.

Yes, all beer brewed in the US provides people with jobs; but to suggest the method and values of said brewing is the same between macro v. craft is simply willfull ignorance.

 

I can't really see two sides to this one. Without doubt, there are people out in the world who want to support local/craft breweries and purchase Goose Island/Kona/Leiny's, etc. and wouldn't if they knew they were owned by InBev or whatever. So what gets weighed on the scale against these people getting screwed/being deceived? InBev's right to hide their ownership? Even if you think the group being deceived is relatively small, I don't see how that comes out BMC's way. For Christ's sake, just put a little stamp on it or something...

 

Agreed, I would be totally willing to sacrifice my time to make sure all existing BCBS is disposed of properly. Ya know... for America...

 

Fair point but I am not sure if this takes in to account alot of the executive positions. For instance they may employ a similar number of brewers but not employ the same amount of in house PR,HR, Accountants, engineers act. But it would make sense cumulatively that all the craft breweries would supply more jobs.

From a bussiness prospective you would hope with how large BMC companies are they would have production streamlined to the point they don't need as many employees.

I guess what I'm trying to say is its unfair to compare craft beer and big beer by jobs created becuase they are two different products, one mass produced. I would expect that a a smaller company with limited resources that produces a more labor intensive product requires the need to hire more people.

I guess people have to make up their minds if they care about taste, price, or if keeping with the craft beer culture is most important it may be a mixture of both.

what if BCBS was produced on level where you could walk in any day of the week and pick up a bottle for 5$ and qaulity was not compromised. Is that bad ? who is to say

 

I liked the article, but I wasn't sure about the attached chart. The whole TRADITIONAL category seems to include a lot of breweries that don't seem to fit the rest of the list. And I'm uncertain why they were targeted in such a manner.

 

I think people should know if the craft beer they are drinking isn't actually a craft beer. But if they like it, what does it matter? Blue Moon, for example, gets a lot of crap because it isn't "craft" beer, but when someone who doesn't know craft beer tries it, then it opens the door for other good craft beers. Blue Moon may not be "craft" but if you like it, then you will like craft beer.

 

I don't blame big business for doing what it is supposed to do, I blame owners of craft breweries for selling out. They are the only ones that can keep craft brewing out of the big guys hands.

 

That was the biggest problem I had with it. August Schell's is not a craft brewery by their definition, even though they're small, independent, and produce some great German-style beers.

 

So everyone who owns stock in inbev is a "rich suit wearing asshole?"

Like someone else said, whoever owns a given brewery has nothing to do with the product, nor how it is made. If the fat cat corporate suits decide it is in their best interest to lower the quality of the product (as I pointed out in the case of Beck's), then that makes the beer less desirable for us to drink. I've drank Goose Island from time to time over the course of 10 years, and I don't notice any difference in quality now.

I don't care who owns a brewery. If you're operating under the assumption that every local brewery near you is solely owned by the head brewer, you are wrong. Go ahead and take the time to figure out who owns each brewery, and figure out if they are "poor" enough for you to support them.

And the whole "drink local" idea is crap in my mind; I drink what tastes good to me (or sometimes I drink crap to review on my website). We have plenty of shitty local beer around here.

I'm not an Inbev *****, and to the extent that they are aware of me, they probably don't like me. But they own some good breweries which I don't choose to avoid simply because of some adolencent hatred of money.

 

Yuengling est. 1829 laughs at Brewers Association est. 2005* deciding Yuengling is not traditional

* or 1978 depending on how you want to look at it

 

I care because the faux-craft are pretending to be something that they are not and they have advatages that a true small brewery does not have. Breweries that have been sold to a major brewer are different set if issues.

AB did not build a Shock Top brewery. There is a scene in Beer Wars where they go to the town listed on the bottle and ask people where that brewery is and know one knows, but they do know that there is a bit AB brewery at the edge of town. They faux-craft are make to look like they come from an idependent brewery when that is not true. If Shock Top was sold at Bud Wit, there is no hiding of who made it and I would be more accepting

New small brewers have to work to get taps and shelf space but a new faux-craft has all the macro brewer's resources behind it and often distributors tied to that macro there to make sure the faux gets prime shelf space and I have heard stories of distributors getting bars to replace taps of small independent breweries with taps of a similar faux-craft with incentives.

 

Christ, where to start with this one..

Most of the breweries I am a frequent customer of are owned by brewers, so your second sentence is wrong. Many of them post on this very website.

If you don't care about buying local products then you also don't care about the environment, your area's economic health, or having a fresh product. Those are pretty dumb things to not care about as they affect you personally.

And caring about who I give my hard earned money to is a "adolescent hatred of money"? Not wanting to financially support multi billion dollar international conglomerates who care about money first and quality last seems logical to me.

 

I kind of take offense at any business (or association of businesses) that suggests what products I should or should not buy or insinuates that I have been making the wrong choices with the money I earned. Especially when it is based on an arbitrary, intellectually and morally corrupt definition of craftbeer/brewer in order to suit your selfish business needs. Shame on you craft brewers (through your association with Brewers Association and agreement to send this op-ed piece) who I have spent tens of thousands of dollars on over the last 20+ years to produce a blacklist of brewers you do not approve of me purchasing. You may be representing brewers, and a small segment of craftbeer consumers views, but this is a slap in the face to those who purchase beers from both the BA approved and blacklisted brewers (which is the majority of craft beer buyers).

Until you've got your own glass house in order re: truth in origin of craftbeer, its ingredients, and transparancy of ownership , you have absolutely no basis to be casting stones at others for doing the same.

This us vs. them mentality comes off as insecure and petty jealousy. Exclusionary tactics are exactly the games that mega brewers have been employing for years to denigrate craftbeer and its consumers, so congratulations on becoming the thing you set out not to become.

 

Laughs ... and then writes them a $15,000 check for their dues - Yuengling joins the Brewers Association

 

From http://www.fallscitybeer.com/FAQ.aspx :

"

We revived the brand in 2010 as an English Pale Ale made in the craft style with all barley malt in small batches. Falls City is the first “value” brand to be resurrected as a craft beer, so we decided it best to contract brew the beer until we were sure that the public was ready for this idea. We currently brew in two locations: Black River Falls, WI (with Sand Creek Brewing Co.) and Nashville, TN (with Blackstone Brewing Co.). This summer we installed our first brew system in Louisville, at 545 Barret Ave. The 7-barrel system we installed will be used primarily for tasting at our on-site tasting room and for keg and growler sales. We are in the final stages of opening the brewery now! Ultimately, we plan to build a 30-barrel production brewery in Louisville. We would like to meet some sales goals before making that investment, but we would like to think that we can do this by 2017.​

"

 

They have a Black IPA on tap at a local bar tonight that I think is from that 7 BBL system.