– What Is A Craft Beer? / By Steve Dunkley

To be brutally honest, no-one really knows. There are all sorts of articles and postings on the internet where people claim to know the definition of what a craft brewer is. It’s easy enough to define what an American Craft Brewer is, because they have an association and a definition: Small, Independent and Traditional. But for them small is less than 6 million barrels of beer a year. That’s a whopping 1.7 billion pints. Not sound so whopping? Here’s a bit of maths; in the UK each day 28 million pints of beer are consumed, which equates to 1.02 billion pints a year. And by beer, that’s all beer including lager and even stuff like Tennents Super and Special Brew.

So, a craft brewer in the USA can produce enough beer to satisfy the entire UK’s thirst for beer and still be considered small. But while we over on this side of the pond consume just over a billion pints a year, the USA consumes over 50 billion. So a craft brewer over there can be big, and yet remain small. As for independent, that’s clearer cut, no more than 25% of the brewery can be controlled by someone in the alcohol industry who isn’t a craft brewer themselves. Actually, that’s not that clear cut is it? Each brewery can own shares in other breweries, so while the big breweries may not have control, you could very easily get a cartel running which isn’t exactly independent. Thankfully, there’s been no signs of that yet.

Surely though traditional should be easier to define? Well, they define it as either having an all malt flagship beer (the main seller) or at least half of the beers are all malt or use adjuncts only to enhance the flavour. So, have a heavily promoted beer, and it doesn’t matter what else you produce. A little bit murky then, but at least there is a definition. Over here there isn’t really one. Which is a shame because like anything that seems good, it won’t be long before the marketing people jump on it and start advertising mass produced swill as “Craft Beer”. So maybe what we need to do is clearly define what a craft beer is before the phrase gets hi-jacked and used to sell substandard fizz.

So I think we need to look more closely at the phrase to see what a craft beer actually is, not so much the beer side of it, we’re hopefully all clear on that. But what is “Craft”. The dictionary definitions are:
– noun
1. An art, trade or occupation requiring special skill, especially manual skill.
2. Skill; dexterity.
– verb
3. to make or manufacture with skill and careful attention to detail.

That seems more like it, “An art that requires skill and careful attention to detail”. That doesn’t require a size limitation, so we’d be able to even allow those Americans into this definition. And over this side of the pond? We’ve got a lot of breweries, but are they Craft breweries in that definition. Some of them almost certainly aren’t. I personally just can’t see the Royal Brewery in Moss Side fitting into this category. I’m also not sure I’d see some of the other local breweries fitting in either but that’s open to debate. But we do have breweries that care about the beer, that aren’t afraid to experiment and see what can be done. I think this is where the craft comes in. It’s not about churning out the same thing again and again, but it’s about seeing what you can do. The first brewery that comes to mind here is Hop Back. Summer Lightning was first brewed at a time when most beers were much darker. They dared to experiment and they’ve reaped the rewards since, they’re probably the most awarded brewery in the UK, with Summer Lightning probably the most awarded beer. Oakham Ales also experimented, they were one of the first breweries to start experimenting with American hops, and their beers are constantly winning awards. So we have a definition of Craft Beer that allows both UK and USA beers to sit side by side:
“Brewed using an art that requires skill and careful attention to detail”.

Now we know that they can sit side by side, can they compete? Can a brewery from England with a capacity of 30 barrels at any time, compete in a glass with an American brewery that produces over 800,000 barrels a year? Well, now you can find out. Go to the bar and order a pint (or a half) of one of the American ales, and a pint (or a half) of one of the kegged English ales. It doesn’t matter if they’re not the same style, just so long as they’re similar styles. And can they compete? I think so. In fact since the fonts have been installed serving some UK beers in the US manner for a fair comparison, I don’t think there’s a single UK beer being served that can’t hold its own. It doesn’t take a big brewery or a lot of money to produce a good, craft beer. It takes skill, dedication and a love of beer.

words by Steve Dunkley / picture from British Craft Brewers Association

- POSTED ON 23 June 2011

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12 Comments on What Is A Craft Beer? / By Steve Dunkley

12 Comments

  1. inthefridges says
    2.38 pm
    23 June 2011

    A very interesting post.

    Defining the beer scene at the moment is a hot topic. It is almost as if we feel the need to have own little craft beer lexicon or dictionary. I fully understand the need for some points of reference. The word Craft alone evokes a home-made, carefully produced product which is indeed what draws us all towards the beer we drink at establishments such as port street.

    Very interesting about the size and productivity of american craft breweries. They really are huge! But as long as the beer continues to be great then who is to argue that size matters in terms of how much they produce.

    I would say that I think as important as it is to define things we should not get bogged down with it. The important thing is the beer and if it is made with care and attention you should be able to tell anyway through the taste however it is defined.

    Also I feel proud that the breweries of Britain are producing great beer that as you mentioned can definitely hold their own when compared to their American counterparts. Good stuff.

  2. Rich says
    2.40 pm
    23 June 2011

    It would have been nice to mention the British Craft Brewers Association (especially as you’ve used an image from their web site). The Craft Brewers Association uses the term for even smaller scale brewing, mainly for homebrewers who make beer using pretty much the same process as the professionals. It is used in this context to separate this high quality, amateur brewed beer from peoples bad memories of kit homebrew from years ago.
    There is quite a lot of cross over between the more advanced end of the homebrewing community and some of the smaller professional breweries around the country. CBA events are run at local breweries and several CBA members now working as professional brewers or have even starting their own breweries.

    • duncan says
      1.01 pm
      24 June 2011

      ah yes – sorry – will credit the picture.

    • Steve says
      3.19 pm
      04 July 2011

      My apologies for not mentioning the Craft Brewers Association. This is purely because I didn’t know of their existence. (I didn’t pick the picture).
      I will though go find their website and read up on them. I do a lot of homebrew myself, even converted part of my garage to store my full mash kit, so I feel I should definitely know about them at least.
      Again, my apologies, and thanks for bringing them to my attention.

  3. Stewart says
    5.06 pm
    23 June 2011

    “But while we over on this side of the pond consume just over a billion pints a year, the USA consumes over 50 billion”

    Where are your numbers from? This infers that Americans drink 10 times the beer we do, and I’m sure that isn’t the case.

    • Steve says
      3.20 pm
      04 July 2011

      America is a rather large country than the UK. We’re not even the size of most of their States. The numbers were from some reports I read from the UK drinks industry bodies and some from the US.

  4. MJC says
    11.37 am
    24 June 2011

    Steve, I take it you had consumed a few beers before you did the arithmetic!

    28m pints a day =10.2 billion pints a year, not 1.02 billion. Yanks consume about the same amount of beer per head than us, not 10 times!

    Also a US barrel of beer is 31.5 US gallons (26 Imperial Gallons), so 6 million US barrels of beer are 1.25 billion UK pints.

    That still means a US craft brewery could produce 12% of UK beer, but the US being a larger market, this definition means only 2-3% of the US market.

  5. Jonny says
    2.34 pm
    24 June 2011

    I love a bit of imperial/metric confusion, excellent explanation of US pint vs UK pints on radio 2 last night. Nice piece though, I think it’s also important to find a body that is willing to define/champion non cask conditioned ‘craft beer’ (however you choose to refer to it), as it seems CAMRA don’t fancy it, SIBA? Or something new, or indeed does it need anyone to champion it as it seems to be doing very well at the moment all by it’s self.

  6. JonnyB says
    1.01 pm
    28 June 2011

    I’ve always considered a craft beer to be one that is brewed by a craft brewer – a company (typically run by a brewer) who puts quality before profit, unlike a large commercial brewer (typically run by accountants, investors, marketeers, etc.) who compromises quality to make as much money as possible.

    Craft breweries love beer, commercial breweries love money.

  7. Paul says
    10.57 am
    30 June 2011

    We also need to remember there is just over 60 million people in the UK compared to just over 300 million in the US. It stands to reason they would produce a lot more beer!

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