Poll: should we continue using the term "craft" to describe beer?

We must! "Beer" to the majority is Bud/Bud Light.

 

Yup - scrap craft. It excludes big chunks of good beer from the rest of the world, while at the same time implying the product is well-"crafted", which often couldn't be further from the truth

Just beer. There's good beer, bad beer, and a ton inbetween

 

This. A million times over.

"Craft" beer always sounded really corny to me.

 

I think we'll always be the small majority. I spent 280 bucks on 24 beers last week. What's a 30 rack of Bud run? 13? I mean, it's a select crowd. We're far from the majority. Beer in the US will always be the macro's.

 

Are you suggesting we try to foll the common man with words like "Crizzaft" or "IP-Azizzle"? History says they'll catch on to that, too...

 

According to the brewers association, American craft beer was 11% of the total US market in 2014. So yes, still craft.

 

Haha yeah - it's like when I hear that beer/cheese/whatever is "artisanal" - it makes me shudder a little

 

If you plonk a glass of beer in front of me and ask "is this craft beer ?" and I can guess right every time then perhaps the word "craft" might mean something.There's lots of beautifully brewed beer about but just as hand thrown pottery doesn't do the job any better than the stuff from a factory it would be difficult to say that small scale brewing delivers a better product either. And some "craft" breweries would have been among the biggest in the world at one time.

 

On the one hand I feel like some people perceive it as pretentious, but on the other hand I suppose I do like having a way to differentiate between macro and non-macro.

I voted "don't care" though because I like drinking the beer I like a lot more than categorizing it

 

Yes. I don't care what people perceive as pretentious.

 

Yes, as long as there is BMC beer, there has to be craft beer.

It's like that, "you can't have good without evil/beauty with ugly"-kinda thing

 

Craft beer means a beer that is not Bud Light, Bud, Coors Light, Miller Lite, etc.

Since the vast majority of the beer consumed in the US is Bud Light, Bud, Coors Light, Miller Lite, etc., the term of craft beers is very useful!!

Cheers!

 

Hasn't this thread been done 100 times?
Regardless yes it should be called craft because you have to differentiate somehow. and if you don't call it craft it will have to be referred to as something else. As soon as you say it should just be called "Beer" you'r grouping it in with all bmc and all mass produced beer.

 

I've never cared for the term craft. As has been discussed here on BA dozens of times, Budweiser is a well-crafted beer. To make as much beer as they do, in as many locations as they do, and have the consumer not know which of the 13 breweries it was crafted in, is a sign of true craftsmanship. Does that make Bud an enjoyable beer to me? No, it does not, but that is certainly a well constructed brew.

Since we seem to have done away with the term 'Microbrew" (which I thought works better than craft), and if we need to call it something, how about Small Batch?

 

If someone puts a free range beef burger in front of you with high end cheese, dressings and they also took the time and care to assemble it properly and then puts it next to a shitty McDonalds burger do you call the free range burger craft? Nope, its a burger, a much higher quality burger but still a burger...but I've always thought referring to our thing as craft beer was a bit corny. I get it but its still corny. I liked Microbrew better...thats me though.

 

I consider the word craft as hand crafted because 98% of what even I'd considered "craft" beer is. So it should be kept to differentiate itself from mass produced, no love or creativity , into making it, products. Not saying the BMC beers don't love their product. But I see them as more of "the man" type figure in the authoritative boss kind of way.

 

Doesn't matter to me. I don't drink beer based on whether or not it has a "craft" label attached to it.