How important is being "Craft" really?

Granted some breweries wish to stay small in order to achieve their unique goals, but; assuming the quality of the beer remains is there anything wrong with a brewery going big? How much does a brewery being "craft" by technical standards (amount of barrels produced) really matter?

 

so with that and other things in mind, how valuable actually is the craft designation? outside of preventing the evil titans of the brewing industry from falsely marketing a beer as "craft" which I would imagine if you can afford a nationally syndicated tv commercial with good production value you hardly qualify for anyway, I don't see the term as being particularly useful, consumer education is important but if you have to be told that a beer is well made to know, you probably don't care that much about what you are drinking anyway

 

we have a brewing culture that is comparatively speaking in its infancy, that being said it is not unfathomable to imagine that in a good long while we could have a brewery with the esteem and scope of a duvel moortgat, a decently large brewing company that sells a product that even by beer geek standards is generally well thought of

 

BMC? spell that out I forget the abbreviation

 

we can call it an insular term all we want but it is the predominant term used by people to describe non-macro beer

 

oh haha yeah sorry, I don't buy their products either, but it is not because of their size, it is because of the quality of the product (or lack thereof) and unsavory business practices

 

the culture of community brewers is great, so nobody think I'm trying to advocate for its destruction. What I am saying though is as long as the integrity of the products produced is maintained maybe we should not begrudge anyone their desire to grow, if indeed that is what they desire to do. Some breweries are good, some breweries are awful, some are small ops and some have bigger plans, maybe the designation should be more of a 'good' beer vs 'bad' beer and less of a 'craft' v 'macro'. Let's all be honest with ourselves if the AB inbevs of the world posessed a long history of excellence and quality in their products we would generally have no problem drinking them, the size of the brewery should not be what leaves a good or bad taste in our mouths, but rather the beer itself and the quality of the people that make it

 

well what you want out of a beer or a brewery experience is yours to decide, my suspicion would be that if "craft" breweries phoned it in, people would not drink it, don't get me wrong there is always an element of trendiness in "buying local" and going to the local brewery because that's the place to be, but if it literally tasted like shit, people would not pay more for it, they would go to other night spots and social gathering spots with cheaper options

 

I agree, a trade association is valuable, but maybe the "goalpoasts" as you call them are the wrong way to decide whether one belongs or doesn't, I'm not pretending to know what would be a better option, but I do know that barrel amount is not the one.

 

well like I said, I don't feel that the craft designation is particularly useful anymore, at one time I think it certainly was, but as we grow as a beer culture and as good breweries prove their mettle and longevity, growth is and will be inevitable either through acquisitions and partnerships, or through expansions, it is not inconceivable to believe that once small breweries get big because of demand for a product that is both good and appealing to the general population, take sierra nevada or sam adams or even to a lesser extent the duvel breweries in the states (ommegang and now firestone walker) these breweries deserve the success they have achieved, that is why they are successful, though success does not always mean growth, but for some it does, I truly believe that if sierra nevada pale ale was now what budweiser (the lager specifically) used to be to the american people, the country would be a better place for beer, big can certainly mean bud but the two are not mutually exclusive