You can't use the term "craft beer" for a year

Wouldn't change anything for me.

Good beer is good beer.

 

Since there is always some discussion about just how 'craft' beer is defined, not using that term might clarify things. It would be very clear if we use good beer or watery beer.

 

Well, since people not familiar with that term call it "weird" beer not sure it would really matter.

 

As a beer analyst, this would be my worst week this year. I would no longer have a way to separate craft from domestics between segments. I suppose I could break things out by brewery, but craft is so diverse it would make my life hell.

Some other poor results for the current iteration of craft would be that it would lose the preferential treatment that they get from retailers that help accommodate the challenges of being a small brewery.

I suspect if we were able to eternal sunshine of the spotless mind the idea of craft from beer, it would be a big boon to shock top/blue moon/etc. Because all beer would be judged on taste alone and those beers would get significantly higher ratings if they were brewed independently. Still not my thing but...

 

Ahem...
four decades.

It wouldn't effect me, because I only use it begrudgingly anyway. I'd rather talk about 'good beer' because that includes beer from all over, not just recent American upstarts.

The beauty of what's been happening in the American brewing scene since the 1970s is that we now have a place at the table. Good for us (sincerely)! But we are definitely not the whole table; something to keep in mind.

 

What happened to the First Amendment, my friend? Your hypothetical is un-American!

 

Can't say it would change much for me

 

I think I've only actually said "craft beer" specifically once (aside from maybe the occasional post on here), when mentioning that a local-ish beer I had toward the end of last year was my "first real craft beer" since prior to that I'd only had some Mexican imported "macro" beers and a Blue Moon variety pack.

So not being able to say that particular phrase wouldn't really impact me much -- usually when I talk about beer I just say "beer," and the people I talk about beer with are people who either drink all kinds of beer (macro, micro, imported, domestic, whatever) or who tend to lean more toward craft beer anyway. Or I'll get more specific, like saying IPAs or stouts or sour beers or wheat beers or lagers or whatever, rather than just beer-as-a-whole.

 

That's cool, but it does seem to tie in with how this latest 'generation' of beer drinker looks at things since the term 'craft was introduced, which is a bit myopic and lacking in appreciation of the big picture. That's one of the reasons I wish the term never existed, I suppose. Sometimes I think the term and how it's marketed exaggerates this effect.

 

Ah Yes, but more importantly lets abolish “Mainstream”

It is indebted in people that beer is uniform, and it is my/our responsibility to convince them otherwise. But how does one break a fixed-mindset...Improv?

 

First off it would not mean beer woukd be judged by taste alone. Advertising, name, label, place of consumption and associations would all impact judgment, as they have always done. The word craft is not a violation of the primordial purity of tasting. That is BS.

It would make it very hard to discuss market trends. We could not discuss if there was a craft beer bubble.There is clearly no beer bubble in the US as beer consumption is not increasing, and the increase in capacity by players like Stone, New Belgium etc is small compared to total industry capacity.

It would also make it hard to distinguish craft beer bars, or even to find the craft section of the beer aisle in a supermarket which would be mixed with the macros.

A new word would have to be found. The reality is that craft is different and language needs to adjust to that reality.

The other thing is that by pretending there is no difference you would drive many people to wine.

 

Am I allowed to like/quote this if I'm not yet 3 decades old?

I do like the idea of calling it good beer instead, focusing on quality rather than semi-arbitrary terms. A craft brewer can produce a crappy beer just as easily as a macro brewer, and vice versa with good beer.

You posted this as I was finishing my beer, so I couldn't get my smart-assery in quick enough . But again, agree that labels can distract from the bigger picture. In this case, the pursuit of higher-quality beer (hopefully).

 

Good beer is not an adequate term either. No consumer market divides it's segments by such a subjective standard.

 

Frozen

That craft can be bad, and macro good is precisely why good beer as a term cannot take the place of craft - it is talking about a different concept. Now some may believe craft is always better, and that is fine, but the truth or falsehood of that does not mean the term craft is not useful.

 

You can call it "tits on a chair"; as long as I can still buy it, and drink it, we're cool.

 

That's fine. It wasn't really meant as an official term, just as the way things have been related conversationally. The thing is, this 'level' of beer has always existed and I'm not so sure it really needs to be defined to that extent.

 

To me, beer is beer. Obviously some are better than the rest, but we are all supposed to be Beer Advocates, so beer should be beer

 

I agree with you, and perhaps your response highlights that my post did not explain my thinking very well. In terms of talking about beer, I would rather discuss good beer vs. bad beer, and forget about macro vs. craft.

Well said.