Fake Craft Beers

@mschrei @GreenBayBA

 

I know Blue Moon gets brought up a lot in these discussions but if you ever travel to Denver it's worth checking out SandLot at Coors Field. It's a neat little brewery and you can find more than Blue Moon on tap.

 

That is easy. My personal definition of "quality" is something I like a lot. Everyone can make their own definition as far as I am concerned.

 

I take your point here but as a BA community this makes communication/discussion quite challenging.

Cheers!

 

if it was easy and everyone agreed there would only be short discussions/no discussions.

 

But you need a baseline to have a productive discussion.

Cheers!

 

It sure does. I'm personally at a loss for how to form a useful definition of "craft" for our collective purposes. Do have an existing definition you prefer? Or an alternative definition you think captures the intent well?

 

I provided my 'answer' to the question "What is Craft Beer" in post #31.

I take it you did not read my linked article?

Cheers!

 

I read your article when you first posted it on here some months ago. My recollection was that you didn't provide any concrete answer but that the article was more of a discussion of the history of the term and of the idea of what we think of as craft beer. Was their a simple definition of the term that you advocate in the article?

 

The ONLY thing that matters to me is if I enjoy drinking the beer. Unless the company is pure evil, I’m gonna buy it, and sleep well after I consume it.

 

lets go back to "micro brew"

 

The article starts by asking "what isn't craft beer" and goes on to prove that is as close to a definition of craft beer the author intends to give. This quote is from the article, which refuses to get closer to a definition than "it's not fizzy yellow".

"Who was the person who coined the term “craft beer”? There is debate here but Vince Cottone (beer writer/consultant) was among the first to use the term “craft brewery” in the 1980’s. A benefit of this terminology is that it does not just refer to the scale of beer production but also to the quality and taste profile of the product itself. A craft beer may be produced by a small brewery but it was more: a beer that was not “fizzy yellow beer”. But wasn’t beer that was not “fizzy yellow beer” produced before the 1980’s in America? The short answer: heck yeah!"

There are some mentions of classic "craft beers" and a small general history designed around these classics.

I actually am good with deciding that craft beer is a meaningless enough term that "not fizzy yellow beer" is a great definition for it.

 

That was my general recollection. I would have suspected that @JackHorzempa would include some fizzy yellow beers among his personal list of "craft beers", but I may have been mistaken.

Ya I'm pretty much open to anyone's personal definition. I, personally, use it as shorthand in conversation about beer to refer to culture and market around beers that aren't macro lagers. In my purchasing habits I attempt to apply my own criteria for quality that I try to bring to all my food purchases. It doesn't really lend itself to a useful definition because I have to acknowledge that its not very linguistically consistent to deny "craft " status to a product just because you think the producer is an ass hat or a dick head.

best case scenario would be some kind of minimal quality criteria for the ingredients used. That would require some kind of body to certify certain input supply chains as up to snuff or else its pretty unknowable. Would be an interesting thing for a body like the BA to pursue, but it sure wouldn't help their bottom line. Plus, they're clearly still busy making sure all of the members clearly date their products and aren't running borderline illegally low quality work environments. I can't imagine they'll have time to get around to ingredient quality controls.

Ultimately, its fair to say that our own BA motto of "respect beer" is as good a definition as any. Does the beer or brewer in question "respect beer"? Still a personal choice, not an objective metric, but its concise and to the point. Food for thought perhaps

 

As far as I'm concerned, beyond the strict definition of beer or craft brewery, as long as you provide me with a valid alternative (and of course this is not always the case, especially with this crowding on the scene) to dull, pasteurized and soulless products to which I was accustomed throughout my childhood and early adolescence, industrial mass-produced drinks, beers devoid of any character and which do not give the slightest satisfaction in being drunk when compared to a "live" beer... this distinction is enough for me.
And in this specific case, Founders Breakfast Stout is one of those beers that, frankly, if the ownership of the brewery has sold to the industry, I really don't care if it provides me with a product at its usual (excellent) level.
A Peroni, I can take it now or in 6 months it remains the same beer
Obviously ... even in this case this is not always the case.
Not to mention the decline of some beers, especially Birra del Borgo, following a change of recipe after the sale to the industry that you will surely know little about, I invite you to those who have had the opportunity to compare Brewdog's Punk Ipa 7/8 years ago with those of the last few years ... That is ... I am not behind any gossip, not even a brewer ... but I believe that even if there has not been a sale to the industry, the quality (goodness) has not followed the expansion of the company hand in hand ... Not at all.
The 5 A.M. it is no longer her.
Therefore, in my idea, the definitions are good on the codes and on the laws, that of "craft beer" I think is more a concept that everyone assimilates, according to their own criteria, to something identified as "different from the usual soup".

 

That’s not how this BA defines craft. Shit, I’d say most of these local/independent/small breweries who are producing these ridiculous pseudo beer “IPAs” and “fruited sours” and “smoothie beers” with lactose and 80,000lbs of fruit per barrel are making a product about as far away from craft beer as I can imagine. Just because you are small and independently owned doesn’t mean that you are producing craft beer. If you are churning out shitty, fruit juice alcoholic beverage you aren’t producing craft beer in my mind.

 

That’s totally fine, but perhaps you misunderstood the intention of my post. I was specifically addressing what was important to the person I replied to.

 

I was just at Paradox in upstate NY. The setting was great but the beer was ok to good. I guess they would be considered independent craft but at the end of the day I would have rather had a Lagunitas IPA on draft or honestly, a pint of Narragansett. I was also at The Alchemist a few days later and every beer they had was top tier and crazy cheap, $12.70 a four pack. Both considered craft but on two sides of the scale. I default to the term craft but to me it means a non AAL from a non major player. Not always a good beer.

Enjoy

 

I’m taking fake craft beer over authentic macro any day of the week.

 

If it isn't brewed out of somebody's garage, it isn't craft beer.

 

Crazy cheap?