BBC: "US craft beer: How it inspired British brewers"

Well written article as I normally expect from the BBC. Thanks for sharing.

 

Thanks, I enjoyed the reading.

 

Not bad to see some acknowledgement of the changed scene in the US.

"Jack McAuliffe, often heralded as the father of American craft beer, was inspired to start the New Albion Brewing Company in San Francisco" Not correct, Sonoma CA IIRC.

We talked to Melissa Cole when drinking outside at the White Horse on Parsons Green last time in London. We got some good pub recommendations from her. She knows the American craft beer scene and players well.

 

I spent the last four months of 2012 on tour (in the US) with a number of British folk who had never been here (or only for a few days). Before production rehearsals were even over, I had several of them looking for New Belgium or Firestone Walker in every city we visited. They never bashed the beer they drank back home - and in fact, they spent quite a lot of time complaining about what we call a "pint" - but they were very impressed with what we were brewing here.

 

Good read.

 

Good read though I have reservations about some parts. CAMRA didn't look back to a bygone age , it secured the best parts of the current one.It was the US brewers who looked at UK's bygone age and revived such as stout/porter, IPA,barleywines, beers now styled as DIPAs and Black IPAs , massive hopping and generally higher strength brewing.British brewing had settled into styles which suited our drinking culture-taking macro lagers out of the equation even today only 13% of beer is bottled.Because "good" beer was based on the pub the demand was for tasty beers of low gravity. Such beers enabled pubgoers to spend hours ar a time drinking and the brewers sold large volumes so everybody was happy.Why brew a strong ale if it means your customer only buys a couple when he would buy eight, ten or a dozen pints of session beer? And who wanted to go to the pub for a small amount of beer?

 

If CAMRA play their cards right & update their culture they could mop up with all the beery developments going on over here. That being said, there's so much good America inspired beer brewed here now that there's almost no need for the imported stuff with suspect BBDs.

 

I ain't no goddamn hipster.

 

Its too bad for Europeans though, as even of the US craft beer they get, they only get the stuff that we have TONS of and can afford to export. Most of our best stuff can hardly be produced in quantities to satisfy regional distribution, let alone national or international.

edit: this is probably the reason US brewing was a joke to them for so long. Drinking's been good here for decades. Sure its only exploded lately, but even 20 years ago we had a lot more going for us than BMC.

 

Really? How many US craft brewers flash pasteurize their kegged beers? Anchor is the only notable one I can think of*. (Perhaps he's specifically referring the exported kegs? I suppose I could see Brooklyn beer brewed at Matt for export as possibly being able to be F-P.)

While it is not "real ale" under the CAMRA definition, most kegged beer in the US is not "keg beer" by the UK usage of the term (forced carbed and pasteurized) - even AB and MC still don't pasteurize their draught beers in the US.

* Well, New Glarus and New Belgium also do some flash pasteurization,​

but not sure to what extent or if it's also their draught, or just bottled.​

 

That's it. The States had world class beer 20 years ago. But now its somewhere in the region of the intergalactic.

 

"Like much else from the same era, that which was once rebellious was quickly assimilated in the pursuit of profit."

Although it refers to beer, this line from the article says everything you need to know about capitalism.

 

"It's a remarkable turnaround for a nation whose beer was recently widely written off by consumers around the world as insufferably naff." ???

Urbandictionary.com: naff: British slang, describes something that is stupid, lame or unpalatable.

I just learned a new word today. Thanks, Brits.

 

Nice article, thanks.

 

I scratch my head when I see craft consumption considered a fad. The only way I see craft beer consumption wane is if it prices itself out of the market. There were British brewers using American hops when I was over there in the early 90s.

 

Isnt it more accurate, however, to say that british brewing settled into lower abv styles for tax reasons, not for culture reasons?

 

If you were making that argument for Ireland, maybe. I don't think the UK is taxed at the same rate that Ireland is/was.

Decent article, but it was a little irritating that they blasted our macro lager offerings without taking a look at their own. Carling lager is the single most consumed beer in the UK, but through reading this article you'd think that every person and their mother were flag waving CAMRA members.

 

And their domestically-brewed AB-InBev "Budweiser" is #5 (that's from the 2010 UK Beer Report - can't find the more recent editions) - with Fosters, Stella Artois and Carlsberg rounding out the Top Five.

 

Did somebody mention Carling?