Craft Beers

Frank Wilson

Now what exactly is a "Craft Beer". The only reason I ask is I was in a bar not so long back and they had a list of "Craft Beers". One of these "Craft Beers" was a bottle of Sagres which anyone who has been to Portugal will tell you is one of the three mass produced lagers along with Superbock and the p-ss poor Cristal.

This "Craft Beer" was being sold at £3.50 which seems a bit large as you can get bottles of Sagres in Portuguese supermarkets for between 40 and 50 cents and in bars from 80 cents in a typical Portuguese bar up to circa 1 euro 50 in the tourist trap areas.

Is the Craft in how they manipulate the price?

the playing mantis

At the beer park in las vegas outside the paris that solely serves anheuser busch products the menu has a substantial list of craft beers which seems a contradiction!

I stuck to the bud light and bud platinum for what it's worth.

VTech

Its a huge growing industry in the USA, I did a contract for a supplier in New York last year and they had over 300 different craft beers on sale through their distributorship.
The good thing was that they were also now starting to supply craft ciders which for the USA is a big step forward.

weezyswiss

Well, donning the beer nerd hat, a Craft Beer is normally a micro brewery that produces a small amount of beer to their own recipe. That, but definition however, does not mean that the beer produced is any good. So, craft beer != good beer always, but by contrast it is meant to fly in the face of mass produced flavourless garbage.

ballysmate

Seems to be a term that we have adopted from US

http://www.craftbeer.com/the-beverage/w ... craft-beer
Annual production of 6 million barrels of beer or less (approximately 3 percent of U.S. annual sales). Beer production is attributed to the rules of alternating proprietorships.

6 million barells?? 'kinell!

Goose Island IPA (5.9%)

American IPA is the brew which symbolises craft beer more than any other. This is a great example of the style. Piney, resiny hop flavours with fruit salad bitterness are balanced by a malty backbone. That Chicago's Goose Island Brewery is now owned by brewing giant AB InBev (which also owns Stella Artois and Budwesier) also provides a window on why people argue about what craft beer means. £1.75/330ml bottle, Sainsbury's.

And still termed a craft beer??
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/food-and-dri ... rs-to-try/

awavey

what they should be are beers made by small independent brewereries in the US, as opposed to the giant industrial style Budweiser type brewers, who make beer mostly in traditional ways using traditional methods, but not necessarily to traditional recipes. Those US breweries became quite successful and created a bit of a niche for themselves, rode the dotcom style wave of being new, fresh etc etc and definitely used the internet to market themselves as something different.

but people in other parts of the world,notably the UK, saw what was happening, tried some of their beer, liked it and set themselves up to replicate the success over here, took the name because they wanted to distuinguish themselves as different on the market, but didnt necessarily stick with the small, micro or independent angles and youve ended up thesedays with a term which is more of a statement about what your beer isnt about, rather than what it is

and youve ended up with lots of people making "craft beer" who dont really seem to know what they are doing, and just chuck more and more flavouring in to hide the fact they cant brew, label it craft and some hipsters somewhere will drink it and claim its the worlds best beer, even though as I memorably remember one guy taking a smell of such a beer, and announcing it smelt like his aunties handbag. :shock:

the playing mantis

Ballysmate wrote:

Seems to be a term that we have adopted from US

http://www.craftbeer.com/the-beverage/w ... craft-beer
Annual production of 6 million barrels of beer or less (approximately 3 percent of U.S. annual sales). Beer production is attributed to the rules of alternating proprietorships.

6 million barells?? 'kinell!

Goose Island IPA (5.9%)

American IPA is the brew which symbolises craft beer more than any other. This is a great example of the style. Piney, resiny hop flavours with fruit salad bitterness are balanced by a malty backbone. That Chicago's Goose Island Brewery is now owned by brewing giant AB InBev (which also owns Stella Artois and Budwesier) also provides a window on why people argue about what craft beer means. £1.75/330ml bottle, Sainsbury's.

And still termed a craft beer??
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/food-and-dri ... rs-to-try/

goose island is rank

rick_chasey

Too hoppy, too bitter.

the playing mantis

VTech wrote:

Its a huge growing industry in the USA, I did a contract for a supplier in New York last year and they had over 300 different craft beers on sale through their distributorship.
The good thing was that they were also now starting to supply craft ciders which for the USA is a big step forward.

hard cider has never been too popular there apart from regionally in tradiational apple growing areas, but it is good its gaining ground nationwide, as a keen purveyor of healeys rattler (especially the pear version (no not a perry, its a mix)) thats one of the few things we currenlty do better than them!

Poitr

Dunno about the UK but now over here in Australia it's at the point where if I duck down to the bottle-shop (liquor store) or what ever you guys call them, it takes half an hour to pick out a six pack of beer, as there are now about 200 different types of beer on the shelf. Plus about 50 ciders. 20 years ago you were lucky if your local pub had 5 beers on tap, now they all have at least 20 plus a fridge full of a seemingly endless supply of different beers in bottles. This craft beer thing is making what used to be a very simple decision into something that requires a masters degree.

BelgianBeerGeek

Craft beer is a fairly meaningless term. More of an ad man's construct, if anything. Some large breweries make fine beers, some smaller ones make beer that's not so good. It's all a matter of taste.

bobmcstuff

In the UK it normally means a brewery which is trying to either differential itself from mass produced beer or cash in on a bandwagon (depending on your level of cynicism and the brewery in question), but also doesn't make CAMRA-approved "real ales".

In bars that aren't proper beer places "craft beer" means "we're going to charge you twice as much".

rick_chasey

It's hardly expensive though is it?

97th choice

Something created by a microbrewery, often a generic IPA with a name designed to impart cachet. Sometimes great, sometimes crap from trying to hard to be different (farmageddon's short lived wet mash experiment).

The brewery stops being 'micro' fairly quickly if they have a successful brand and a business plan. Funny that.

97th choice

Oh, my local brewery makes a beer called 'red trail'. Who cares what it tastes like, red trail, mountain biking, woo hoo!!!

team47b

Sagres is not a craft beer, well it's not even a beer, at a stretch its a lager, and it is owned by Heinekin International, which I think says it all

Pross

Not a fan of the craft trend but at least there is now a really good choice of ales available in any half decent pub. This was brought home to me last night when I went to a local rugby club and the only beer they had on tap was Worthingtons. A few years ago that would have been standard on a night out to the point where I switched to drinking lager as you couldn't get a decent beer.

Frank the tank

Please do not confuse craft beer with real ale.

Pross

I'm not but I do think the popularity of craft keg ales has helped the resurgence of real ales as some of the traditional cask brewers are gaining popularity through their newer keg beers. The main thing is you can now get a decent choice of beer, whether cask or keg, when a few years back it wasn't unheard of to go in a pub and only find lagers available.

bbrap

I always like the Daily Mash's take on things http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/busi ... 0301106716