Time to drop "Craft" from Craft Beer?

You should also contact Greg Koch, of Stone Brewing, as his recent press release used the word craft several times. Or IRI which uses a different definition from BA, but also finds the word useful. Or the restaurants which say craft beer served, and find it useful.

Seriously, the word will dIE when it is no longer useful . It is still quite useful in many contexts, from data analysis to describing restaurants.

I guess a thread like this once a month enables venting, so whatever.

 

Beer sales in the US are decreasing, buy both imports and craft are growing.

How do you say that without the word craft?

 

One interesting thing is that the term "craft" has really taken hold in Germany. Over there, it's synonymous with beers that aren't natively German. It's unrelated to size and they wouldn't call a place like Mahr's or Greifenklau "craft" because they're making traditional German beers. It's really only used with the places making IPA, wit, and such. Most are American in origin, but some are Belgian and English.
Even if we drop the term over here in the States, the Germans have already latched onto it.

 

I agree. But a distinction must be made for fear someone like my wife will buy Bud Light for me. So, drop "Craft" and just call it Beer. Then just call the yellow fizzy stuff a poor man's sparkling water.

 

I never really started using, and have been against its usage all along. The only place I see/hear it used is on-line anyway, so calling it anything other than beer is just silly.

 

Micro brewed beer became clunky, sort of like a first generation PC. Craft beer is getting long in the tooth. What to replace it with?

Craft beer is now a thing in Germany, as @Domingo says.

 

I don't agree with your reasons, but I agree that the term "craft" (or any other synonym) has to go

 

now that corporate beer hijacked the term "craft" how about indie beer....like indie music.

 

I've never liked the term 'craft'. It sounds like an old lady knitting sweaters. 'Quality' beer has a nice ring to it.

 

artisanal, like it comes from a freakin' aquifer!

 

Alright, time for a lesson in grammar. Bear with me:

1. Descriptive grammar: the systematic study and description of a language. Descriptive grammar refers to the structure of a language as it is actually used by speakers and writers.
2. Prescriptive grammar: a set of rules and examples dealing with the syntax and word structures of a language, usually intended as an aid to the learning of that language. Prescriptive grammar refers to the structure of a language as certain people think it should be used.

Both kinds of grammar are concerned with rules--but in different ways.

Grammar deals with language. Language is what we use to express things we have defined in the world. In beer, as with language in general, we have people who think that craft beer is just beer, and that beer is what all beer should be referred to as. Then there's those who prefer to use the term "craft beer" since it somewhat adequately expresses a difference between what most people think of as beer and what people mean to say when they say craft beer.

Essentially, there are people who generally subscribe to one or the other mode of thinking about language and as such, we will never reach an agreement on this matter. I personally tend to think that how a word is actually used by the general populace (a linguists approach) matters more than how people think it should be used (a teacher's approach), but I suppose since the term "craft beer" is still in its infancy, there is some room for debate. However, I feel the term has become too mainstream and with too much meaning attached to it to disappear as a term any time soon.

 

I think you're referring to "artesian," not "artisan."

 

The term "craft" is popularly used. I suppose that @Seanem44 could create a club or organization to eliminate this word from being so popularly used but I doubt that he will be successful here. People want to use words to describe beer that is not BMC type beer (e.g., AALs).

Cheers!

 

Independent Craft Beer sounds good. If you're nursing on the teet of InBev, Constellation, or Heineken...you're NOT independent. You might make stellar beers...but you can't call yourself Independent Craft Beer. ICB. trademark that!

 

That's the first step to rolling over and dying..

Show some solidarity and concede nothing to the Giants trying to squeeze you out!!!!

 

No it hasn’t. It’s taken hold with (a) people trying to sell beer (b) people with a material interest in writing PR pieces about this fictional category and (c) journalists looking for a trend to fill pages. Beer drinkers don’t talk about “craft beer”.

“Craft beer” in Germany is essentially snobbery. Most of the beer is brewed under contract in the same old regional breweries as the everyday beer, and the biggest so-called "craft" brand, Braufactum, is a subsidiary of the Dr Oetker foods group which owns some of the biggest German beer brands. Dr Oetker has discovered that it can sell "craft" beer at five or six times the price of ordinary beer. No wonder it is so keen for people to believe in "craft".

 

It's an easy differentiation.. If you drop the 'craft' what else will you call it? Micro vs Macro? Good vs Bad? Those are either opinion or subject to change. I think it's easy to just call it craft beer to distinguish the 2 broad ranges of the single beverage, beer. Craft breweries make the beer as a form of art. It's a craft to them. The Macro swill companies don't care about their beer. They don't make it high quality or the best way they can make it. They don't even try, therefore it isn't even a craft to them, it's just business. Even if the term "craft" goes away I'll still use it for the breweries I think are trying to maintain the craft integrity of brewing good quality beer, and bringing back the old styles so that we have more than just corn lagers on the market.

 

The term used in spanish is "cerveza artesanal" which would translate directly to either artisanal beer or craft beer.

The only reason I used this term is to differentiate from crappy beer. I couldn't care less about the volume produced.

This. As much as I use "craft" to talk about great well done beer, right now everything is being slapped with this terms: water, popcorn, bread, etc.

 

So I looked up hand cut steaks. You can cut them with a knife, or you can use a machine saw, which is not considered hand cut.