"Crafty" brewers coming on strong?

I agree. And, for that matter, a lot of people I've talked to think the same thing.
I thought it was great for what it was - a simple (straight 2-row malt and Cascades hops) easy drinking, but flavorful beer. I think that what turned people off is that it WASN'T a 1000000-IBU, Pappy Van Winkle-aged, 50%ABV monster.
Remember what beer was when the Albion first came out - possible worse than the BMCs now. And there was no Anchor, Sierra Nevada, Petes, or any of those others to fall back on. That was the biggest, most flavorful beer out there at the time.
I've brewed a version of this myself as homebrew, and this will absolutely be one of the regulars that I keep ready to go all the time.

 

Many brands are not the hippest of the hippermost, but are really good examples of various styles. Shiner gets very little love here, but their Octoberfest can be very tasty, as well as such things as their Pilsners. I really don't know the difference between craft and crafty. All I know is if I like a beer or not.

 

I know someone who drives a forklift for a BMC brewery. I'd like to introduce you to him so you could explain to him why he isn't "local" in his own community and the $$ he spends in the community from a decent paying job doesn't count. You seem to have it all figured out.

 

Zactly. Maybe BMC is now "foreign owned" but the guy driving the truck from a local warehouse to the local neighborhood store, selling beer to my neighbors and putting his hard earned money back in to our local economy is dam sure a "little guy", employed locally and spending his money locally.

 

And, Tenth and Blake is Miller/Coors, Correct? They don't even list Terrapin on their website.

 

the point is they have an oppressive market presence and shut smaller, OTHER LOCAL businesses out of the market place.

do you really think i think that the people that work at a given plant, like say the bud plant 3 miles from where i am now, aren't PEOPLE in a community, spending their money at the LOCAL Home Depot and Safeway just like all the other humans in their vicinity?

i was talking about the effects on MANY LOCAL economies and towns, not just the 10 PLACES WHERE THEY BREW BUD in the lower 48 for western hemisphere distribution.

 

Well, like many I'm not crazy about the Brewers Association's definition of "craft brewer" but it seems to me their "crafty" term should apply to the craft style beers brewed by Anheuser-Busch or MillerCoors and marketed under dba fake brewery names (Blue Moon, Shock Top) or their wholly owned subsidiaries (Goose Island, Leinenkugel) which do not openly disclose their parentage on the labels.

Not sure how Boston Beer Co. comes close to that definition or what gray area they occupy under the B.A.'s criteria. They are active members of the Brewers Association, with Koch having been on their board. Needless to say, the jump in the barrelage limit was specifically for BBC - no other member brewery was anywhere close to 2m bbl/yr.

OTOH, the BBC labels for the one-off New Albion Ale did use the dba of "New Albion Brewing Co."

I have only vague - and reliably questionable - recollections of the one bottle of New Albion Ale I had in the late 1970s (hand-carried back from Calif). But I imagine the BBC version was somewhat "cleaner" tasting that the original - given BBCs much more modern (and pre-craft-era built) breweries. I assume BBC-NAA's was filtered and pasteurized as are BBC's standard bottled beers, whereas New Albion was famously the US's only bottle-conditioned beer at the time (they also would have infection issues at times).

ABV info from before the mid-1990s when it became generally legal to list it in the US is always questionable, but I usually trust that Michael Jackson's specs were as accurate and "first hand" (direct from the brewer) as possible and his 1981 Pocket Guide listed New Albion Ale at 5.2% whereas the BBC version was 6%.

How so? At the time, Budweiser was still AB's best-selling flagship (Bud Light did not exist) and, according to some sources like Owades, was still around 17 IBU's. Likewise, Coors Banquet and Miller High Life were still those companies' flagships, although Miller Lite's immense sales success was the beer that allowed Miller to climb to #3 in a matter of just a few years. Coors (still a regional brand) was one of the notably "lighter" beers at time, but was probably still better than today's "Coors Banquet".

Well, Anchor obviously existed - dating from the 1890s, and Fritz Maytag purchase in the mid-60s and his eventual reworking of the recipe of Steam Beer by dropping the adjunct is generally considered to be the first "craft beer" of the modern age.

"Biggest"? Even if we only consider US beers, there were still a number of higher ABV beers around (esp. if we go by Jackson's contemporary claim of "5.2%") and while "most flavorful" is a judgement call, I'd say that beers like Anchor Steam, Porter & Liberty Ale, Ballantine India Pale Ale, Rainier Ale, Prior Double Dark, the Pennsylvania porters from Stegmaier and Yuengling and even some of the still existing US "golden ales" - Ballantine, Croft, Pickwick, McSorley's, Black Horse - were just as "flavorful" as NAA.

 

These businesses are where they are, because they are great at what they do. Many "Mom and Pop" businesses are greatly overrated IMHO. A group protested the opening of our local Home Depot (now closed for 5 years and empty taking 50 jobs with it- happy?)- they ended their little protest and some went shopping in the local supermarket- like that supermarket didn't put some small grocery stores out of business. I notice Starbucks and Target aren't mentioned. Apparently the new business model for small brewers isn't a couple of trucks going out a day to make deliveries, but rather to have thousands of cars drive hours to pick up their up their product.

 

The hops and barley that craft brewers use are usually grown with the same practices as supplied to the macros. The are some organic craft beers, but those are a few.

One could argue that ABIbev would have lower shipping cost per barrel than widely distributed craft breweries. Many of their breweries are where the population density is high. One of the reason the Craft breweries from the West are opening in the East is to save on shipping.
http://www.buschjobs.com/Careers/our-company/us-locations

 

Outside of BA the vast majority of consumers don't care. If an average consumer is looking at interchangeable products (in their eyes anyway) price and quality are major factors. Most people want access to a tasty beer at a good price and have it available to them. The key driver in Economics being the majority of consumers is that consumers want what they want, when they want it, at least cost. Given that doesn't that make any attempt to classify craft vs. crafty nearly moot when looking at it from a very high level? If a consumer is looking at a 12 pack of blue moon for 12.99 vs. a local brewery wheat at 9.99 and they view them as interchangeable then that makes Blue Moon craft.

Disclaimer: this really only applies to the majority of consumers as a whole and not broken down by demographics. I consider everyone here a fringe consumer and for the most part outside of my thoughts above.

 

Can someone define Crafty vs. Craft for me?

 

The Brewers Association (the industry group that represents primarily the "craft" breweries) can:

Their definition of craft is at Craft Brewer Defined.

Their now-deleted pdf of the US breweries they considered as "crafty" can still be found Domestic Non-Craft Breweries and other sites around the 'net. And further explained in their press release entitled Craft vs. Crafty: A Statement from the Brewers Association​

 

Thanks for that info. Nothing really too surprising there. Most of those companies aren't really putting out beers that people like us are really going after, save for a couple of companies. I was just a little confused when I saw redhook in the OP then I started thinking about places like SN that could be tossed in that bunch. Hey, there's something to be said for the fact that I can get a bomber of Redhook ESB or SNPA for $2.50 at any point in time at the grocery store. That's a great value for good beer. SNPA especially. Or the fact that you can enjoy great beer most places you go in the country because of the widespread distribution. Crafty or not, good beer is good beer.

 

The New Albion/Sam Adams Pale Ale was very good.

 

Redhook is listed as "Non-craft" because it is part of the Craft Brew Alliance company, a merger of Kona, Widmer and Redhook, and Anheuer Busch owns "...32.2% of [CBA's] outstanding shares of common stock at December 31, 2012" according to their 2012 Annual Report.

While Sierra Nevada is slightly larger than CBA, they are independent, and, since they sell just under 1 million barrels of beer a year, are nowhere near the current B.A. barrelage limit of 6m bbl.

 

I thought that Shiner Oktoberfest was a waterd-down mess of a beer. Of the ten or so marzens I tried this year, Shiner's was by far the worst. Now Redhook though, that was some good stuff. I picked up some Winter Hook over the weekend, it's also a good one.

I agree with the crafty places putting out some good stuff. I regularly get Kona Bigwave and Fire Rock. The Sam Adams winter pack is always solid. Even the Leine's winter pack that a friend got had some good one's in there. Just because a brewery gets too big to qualify as "craft" anymore doesn't mean I have to ignore them. If they still make good stuff I'm still gonna drink it.

 

Exactly. I'm not hipster enough to dislike a beer just because the company brewing it wanted to expand their business. I like Fire Rock from Kona, and the great thing is that you can get it in Missouri and I can get it in Montana. That wouldn't be the case if the company had never "sold out". I think it's a great problem for the craft beer business to have if you think about it. The industry is at a point where people actually have the opportunity to get big if they want to and there are people out there that will buy their beer. The world wasn't always like this. We are spoiled.

 

I had a bottle of New Albion earlier this year. It was musty and a little grassy. Will not drink again. Not sure I'd call this one a "crafty" beer, though, since it is from Boston Beer Co. which is still (technically?) a craft brewery.

Every Red Hook I have had is mediocre at best.

We'll see if AB/InBev can keep Goose Island's rep where it is when Bourbon County Stout and all its variants come out in a couple of weeks. I also have a bottle each of the "four sisters" I'm going to open at a party this coming weekend; I'll be sure to post reviews on those.

 

Since the founding of the Brewers Association in 2005 and the creation of their "Craft Brewer" definition, there has never been a brewery that grew large enough to no longer qualify as "craft". Boston Beer Co. came closest, but the B.A. changed their craft criteria from a yearly barrelage of no more than 2 million barrels (which is the Federal government's definition of a "small" brewery for Federal Excise Tax purposes) up to "under 6 million barrels" in 2011.

At this point, the only domestic US breweries that are eliminated from the B.A.'s "craft" designation for size alone are Anheuser-Busch and MillerCoors. Even Pabst (which once brewed 17m bbl/yr and now owns the most of the brands of two other former +15m bbl/yr breweries, Stroh and Heileman) sold only 5,900 or so barrels last year.

Seekabrew's comparison page shows close to 2 dozen US craft brewers that distribute to both states without having sold out to AB or MC.