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

Discussion in 'Beer News' started by Todd, Dec 13, 2012.

Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.
  1. savagewhisky

    savagewhisky Initiate (0) Aug 8, 2007 Virginia

    It may be true that nobody is using the term morality, but that's the underlying sentiment in a lot of the discussion about big brewers. Because they have made bad in the past (which they have) people seem to assume that everything they will do in the future will be bad. That isn't necessarily the case, especially when we're talking about a big brewer acquiring a craft brewer (not merely disguising one of their beers as a craft beer).

    That's what I mean by dressing up the issue in robes of morality. All craft beer isn't good. And all macro-beer isn't bad. So, if your only real concern is the quality of beer then there's no reason to create blacklists.

     
  2. savagewhisky

    savagewhisky Initiate (0) Aug 8, 2007 Virginia

    I have no problem with a person who wants to feel like they are being morally good by buying a locally produced beer and helping their local economy or something. I take issue when people try to make the argument that the only good tasting beer is and always will be craft beer and everyone else is hurting the future possibility of good tasting beer by buying anything other than craft.
     
    kelvarnsen likes this.
  3. Tballz420

    Tballz420 Initiate (0) Mar 4, 2003 Minnesota

    Wow, that's quite a feat, seeing that a lot of what is said on here is horseshit.

    So if i go to the bank and get a loan to start a brewery, the banker is going to submit his homebrew recipes and make me brew them?

    Which beers that Goose Island brews have been changed since new ownership? I will go try them and compare them to my notes from 10 years ago.

    As I have said for the third time now, if someone buys a brewery and changes the recipe for worse, that will affect their sales, as I assume has happened in the case of Becks. All of the comments of my review of that beer on my website say something like "I used to like this beer, but now it sucks and I don't buy it anymore."

    So here we have one example of a brewery that was unaffected by ownership change (at least I will assume so until you point out which beers I need to try again) and one that was. In the latter case, I'm not privy to the sales figures of Beck's, but I assume it was a poor business decision.
     
    savagewhisky likes this.
  4. kelvarnsen

    kelvarnsen Pundit (944) Nov 30, 2011 Canada (ON)

    It seems to me like the big brewers can't win no matter what they do. I mean if they continue to make light lagers and market the hell out of them they get criticized for making swill. If they actually make an effort to make better tasting beers, either through brewery acquisitions, or by trying new recipes they get criticized for not being real craft.
     
    acevenom and JavaNoire like this.
  5. TheodorHerzl

    TheodorHerzl Initiate (0) Mar 30, 2007 Indiana

    I think it is about time to abolish the word craft. I've had a great deal of shitty craft in my day. A new place opens and we say "congratulations, you brew craft beer." It means about as much to be as the other buzz words artisinal, small batch, limited....bla bla

    Have confidence in your product, don't be an asshole, brew good beer and I will support it.
     
  6. jacksback

    jacksback Initiate (0) Jul 20, 2011 Massachusetts

    The bank is giving you a loan. The bank does not own the brewery.

    Are you even trying?
     
  7. BColton1

    BColton1 Initiate (0) Jan 7, 2005 Rhode Island

    I think good beer...is good beer. I'm not going to stop drinking Goose Island because InBev owns it. I'll stop drinking Goose Island if the quality goes downhill.
     
    taxman, jds8411 and Jerry like this.
  8. geocool

    geocool Savant (1,209) Jun 21, 2006 Massachusetts

    How about if they change the branding on BCBS to read "Anheuser-Busch Goose Island"? That would make it easier to acquire for sure. AB InBev has a 49.2% market share in the US, and nearly 25% of the entire world. I disagree with the idea that they "can't win no matter what they do."
     
  9. kelvarnsen

    kelvarnsen Pundit (944) Nov 30, 2011 Canada (ON)

    What I meant was they and other big brewers can't win in the eyes of people who would criticize them. I mean the people who would call them out for only making bland lagers seem to be the same people who would call them out for their more flavourful beers being some kind of fake-craft.
     
  10. Tballz420

    Tballz420 Initiate (0) Mar 4, 2003 Minnesota

    You seem like you got lit up on some high ABV beers last night and woke up on the wrong side of the bed. Try some herbal hangover cure and chill out.
     
    savagewhisky likes this.
  11. cmannes

    cmannes Pundit (943) Mar 15, 2009 Minnesota

    Schell's has responded to the article.

    http://mnbeer.com/2012/12/14/august-schells-jace-marti-on-craft-beer/

    A few choice quotes

     
    JavaNoire, fields336, bsp77 and 4 others like this.
  12. gory4d

    gory4d Maven (1,415) Apr 14, 2007 Texas

  13. Crusader

    Crusader Pooh-Bah (1,651) Feb 4, 2011 Sweden
    Pooh-Bah Society

    I can understand that the BA wants to promote all-malt brewing by including a criteria based around this type of brewing since it's still a minor category in the US beer market overall. Since craft beer is about having options and choice, and one of the things which had been lacking in the market having been all-malt beers, this makes sense. But there will always be trouble when it comes to writing the criterias so that they make perfect sense rather than seem inconsistent. Traditional is obviously a word many brewers would like to claim for themselves, whether based on age or brewing ingredients or techniques etc. They can't go with reinheitsgebot (in its most simple form that is, the ingredients) since craft brewing also includes the use of a myriad of different ingredients at this point, so it would seem odd to use the limitations intended by the purity law as a criteria for who is a craft brewer. If they wanted to be nice to the regional adjunct/all-malt breweries they could use some sort of convoluted "mainly all-malt brewing see above for definition" criteria-term I suppose and leave the "traditional" can of worms alone, or just go with traditional and end up hurting the feelings of those three regional breweries in their push for more all-malt brewing and the ability to make a distinction between the BMC and craft breweries.
     
  14. Winston_Smith

    Winston_Smith Initiate (0) Oct 25, 2012 Kentucky

    Thank you for enlightening me to beers that I will (do my damndest to) never drink again.
     
    pixieskid likes this.
  15. RKPStogie

    RKPStogie Initiate (0) Nov 4, 2011 Minnesota

    I was going to say the same thing. Below is another link of Shell's response to the brewers association. The brewers association is full of s**t on this one.

    http://beerpulse.com/2012/12/august...-in-response-to-craft-vs-crafty-shame-on-you/
     
  16. jesskidden

    jesskidden Grand Pooh-Bah (3,071) Aug 10, 2005 New Jersey
    Pooh-Bah Society Trader

    Great reply by Schell's Jace Marti, but unlike the Brewers Association's new rather nasty "blacklist-like" LIST OF DOMESTIC NON-CRAFT BREWERS pdf, he was too collegial and polite to call out some of his fellow small brewers when he wrote:


    ...so allow me to so :grinning:.

    Spoetzl Brewing Co. (Shiner brand) is owned by Gambrinus - a company that got its start as one of the two Corona importers in the US covering mostly the eastern portion of the US (they lost that contract in 2006, long after they had purchased Spoetzl, BridgePort and the now-defunct contract-brewed brand Pete's). How are they not "...an alcoholic beverage industry member who is not themselves a craft brewer."

    In addition, Spoetzl's flagship is Shiner Bock, an adjunct brewed beer (not too dissimilar in recipe and history from a non-craft beer like Yuengling Lager). Not only is Shiner Bock obviously nothing like a traditional German bock beer, it was long considered one of the lightest and least authentic of the already bastardized "US bock" style (a style, now almost extinct, which was once brewed by probably 80-90% of US breweries in the pre-craft era).

    Anchor Brewing Co. without question the preeminent "craft brewery" in the US, was purchased by the Griffin Group in 2010, the owners of which were best known previously for their promotion of the Skyy Vodka brand. They currently own the spirits import company, Preiss Imports and also the importer/partner of Brewdog. Now, Anchor's history is important to the history of what came to be called (for better or worse) "craft beer", but how is the new ownership not ""...an alcoholic beverage industry member who is not themselves a craft brewer." ? Or how does the B.A.'s technicality that disqualifies the contract-brewed Winery Exchange/World Brews being from a company where "Wine business is majority of sales." not apply to Griffin?

    The disqualification of the CBA breweries (Redhook, Widmer, Kona and formerly Goose Island) as "craft" due to the 1/3 partial ownership of that company by AB was duly noted by MillerCoors' Tenth and Blake subsidiary when they bought into Terripin and kept their portion of ownership under 25%. (So, what do you figure it is - 24.9%?)

    Also, note in B.A's pdf that a number of those "non-craft breweries" brew beer FOR "B.A. approved" craft brewers who contract some or all of their production. Sixpoint and Lancaster at The Lion, 21st Amendment at Cold Spring and City/Blues City, (formerly) Boston Beer Company's Samuel Adams at a half dozen of them over the decades (including Miller, NAB/Genesee, Pittsburgh, City-Latrobe on the B.A. list). Schell's itself has contract brewed numerous "craft'" brands including Pete's, once the #2 craft label in the US. So, apparently non-craft breweries CAN and DO brew craft beer. Go figure.

    Maybe the most notorious and best publicized B.A. "definition change" was upping the limit of "small" from a yearly barrelage of 2 million (based on the US TTB's limit for brewers who are pay the reduced Federal Excise Tax on their first 60,000bbl) to 6 million in 2010. Leaving the limit at 2m would have disqualified Boston Beer Co. (longtime B.A. member, whose Jim Koch has served on the Board) as "craft". That, in turn, would have meant a decrease in craft market share for that year, since BBC's production add up to approx. 20% of all "craft beer".

    A previous "stop gap" rule to keep BBC under 2m bbl. and "craft", was to not counting BBC's significant sales of the decidedly non-craft HardCore Cider and Twisted Tea beverages - since "Flavored malt beverages are not considered beer for purposes of this definition." So, apparently "craft brewers" like BBC, and F.X. Matt (it's AAL Utica Club brand, as well numerous contracts brews and FMB's) CAN brew non-craft beer.
     
  17. hoeg0015

    hoeg0015 Initiate (0) Jul 15, 2008 Minnesota

    I hereby nominate Jesskidden to create his own 'craft' definition and guidelines, and determine who qualifies and who doesn't.
     
    RKPStogie and bergbrew like this.
  18. hoeg0015

    hoeg0015 Initiate (0) Jul 15, 2008 Minnesota

    Summit's current 'unchained' offering is a Kentucky Common, per the brewery. Classified as a rye beer here.

    http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/467/86524/?view=beer&sort=latest&start=0

    Still can't figure out why I can't embed links...arggghh.
     
  19. klaybie

    klaybie Initiate (0) Nov 15, 2009 Illinois

    NOOO! I love Czechvar (Known as Budvar in it's native land) and Franziskaner. I knew they owned Pilsner Urquell but come on! What's interesting is that there are some German beers I've never had/heard of owned by ABInbev so they must be fairly local (bc I've been all over Germany and heard of/had most major and regional brands). So are there people in Germany, buying locally brewed beer that's owned by ABInbev?
     
  20. jesskidden

    jesskidden Grand Pooh-Bah (3,071) Aug 10, 2005 New Jersey
    Pooh-Bah Society Trader

    Budvar/Czechvar is on Brookston's list because at the time it was created ABInBev's US importing division, Import Brands Alliance, had the contract to import it into the US (that's what the notation "$ us" means on that site, see "Key" on bottom of list "$ = distribution only"). ABI does not own the brand or brewery.

    Since then, that contract was ended by Budějovický Budvar, n.p. as of July, 2012. See their press release:
    Budweiser Budvar is ending its cooperation with Anheuser-Busch InBev concern

    As noted by BB, Czechvar is now being imported by United States Beverage (but look closely at labels, regardless if one draws their personal "line" at import rights vs. ownership, the ABI imported stuff is also getting old :wink: ).

    Also, the "they" that owns Pilsner Urquell is SABMiller, imported now by MillerCoors' "Tenth & Blake" division.

    ABInBev Deutschland claims it is the #2 brewing company in Germany, with 8.8% of the market, selling 8.9 million hl a year.
     
    klaybie likes this.
Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.