From Marketwatch: Sam Adams is about to be kicked out of the "craft beer" category

Man, what a bunch of nonsense.

The Brewers Association "Craft Brewer" definition does not depend on the Federal Beer Excise Tax Reduce Rate qualifications and hasn't since they switched their limit for what they considers a "small brewer" from 2m bbl to 6m bbl back in 2011.

Changing the US Beer Tax Rate won't make the Brewers Association change their definition.

 

This article describes a government definition based on production for tax purposes. My taste buds tell me that craft beer is about more than numbers. The stuff about craft beer needing the government's help in defining itself is blatant BS. Most people on this site have a pretty good idea what craft beer is and can tell by opening a bottle or can, pouring it into a galss and then drinking it. I don't need a law and I don't think anyone else here does either to tell them what craft beer is and isn't. For industry purposes, the Brewer's Association definition is still relevant.

 

But that was the same reduction in FET that Boston Beer Co. would have seen under the competing, B.A. supported Small BREW Act:

Unlikely that the B.A. would design a Tax Break that would have then disqualified BBC (which still accounts for around 14% of all "craft beer" sales under they expanded definition that counts predominant adjunct brewers) from their own "Craft Brewer" definition.

 

This seems dumb. Can't "craft" just mean "good" or made by people that actually care?

 

"However, on June 11, Sen. Ron Wyden, a Democrat from Oregon, introduced the Craft Beverage Modernization and Tax Reform Act (S. 1562) that would not only cut excise taxes imposed on brewers, but would finally settle who’s a craft brewer and who isn’t. "

Uh, no it won't. It is just a tax code definition.

 

In my opinion, when Sam Adams changed its logo, it left craft beer, they wanted to become the new mainstream. They've arrived. Their original logo is so sleek, I don't understand why they don't revive that logo for special re-releases like Triple Bock and Millennium to satisfy their craft customers.

 

That's quite a subjective definition, don't you think? Who gets to decide which beer is good and whether the people making it care?

 

OK, so slick logo = not craft. Got it... I'll keep an eye out for any beer logos that look too professional and avoid them.

 

Well said! Can't really add much more to that ...

 

No, how did you come to that conclusion? I explained, in my own opinion, that their original logo WAS slick and the beer WAS CRAFT, Sam Adams was a brand of beer, like Firestone Walker and Goose Island's Bourbon County. Now, Ill explain in more unnecessary detail because your snide comment, they're happy-go-lucky Samual Adams character is an image for Boston Beer Company, this mastodon of a corporation, with tons of employees and hundreds of beers @ 5.5%, weak mouth feel, focus group flavors and commercials being aired during football games, which seeks to suck in dads and dorks who think they're drinking craft. They aren't small anymore, they're AB InBev's little Frankenstein. Nobody in the craft beer industry wants their beer in their bars, even in his own city because there is such better craft beer available and its all about middle-class man. People would prefer to know the people brewing their beer, like a bartender and its regulars. Now, before anyone in the beer community had time to say this to Jim Koch, the government did, with taxation standards.

How you manipulated my post in that conclusion I can only imagine but the internet and its forums are full of people just like you, rest assured!

 

Good logic. Your pants are on your head though

 

Umm, because you said this:

I get that I was being snide and disrespectful. Sorry about that. My main gripe is that so many people have these arbitrary definitions of craft they throw about, and frankly this statement stood out.

 

'Craft' is a stupid label anyway and, at least from a consumption standpoint, largely irrelevant. (Although, I think, if I were a brewer, I might well like it applied to myself). Craft isn't good beer and non-craft isn't bad beer - it's a spectrum (filled, incidentally, with a lot of middling-decent beers). That's part of what makes hunting whales so much fun. I will accept the definition for tax code purposes and give it no further thought.

 

Meh.

 

Sam Adams is about to be kicked out by an even more important group.....us. Some already have.

 

Can we just get rid of the "craft" division once and for all? Big Beer already uses it as a weapon against craft consumers.

 

Who is "us"?