The “Craft Beer” Thing Was a Blind Alley

Over the weekend, a South African journalist contacted me about how to relate to the concept of craft beer. The situation there is following the American course, with consolidation, and he wondered how to define “craft beer” when the lines seemed to get blurrier and blurrier. I am going to reproduce my answer below, because they expressed my clearest thinking to date about this question.

I think there are two separate issues here. One is what’s best for small breweries in terms of organizing. In the U.S., the notion behind the Brewers Association was for small breweries to join in a trade organization to lobby government for laws and regulations beneficial to their membership. Small breweries have different needs and interests than big ones, so it makes sense for them to organize and use their collective power to influence lawmaking.

As a component of their organization’s efforts, they need a PR/communications arm to put their issues in front of the public and generate enthusiasm for their position. This is politics 101 in a democracy—make your positions popular and politicians will happily support them. Highlighting their size, independence, and “craft” approach was always going to be a winning formula. In stories with a David and Goliath, people root for David. The idea of promoting an industry’s “handmade” and “artisanal” approach is almost inevitable for industries composed of tiny businesses, whether it’s cheesemakers or coffee roasters or bicycle manufacturers.

Separately, there’s the issue of how we in the media and public characterize beer and breweries. In the U.S., little breweries once seemed distinctive because big breweries only made one kind of beer and little breweries made entirely different kinds of beer. The public and media readily adopted the “craft” language because helped make sense of this new product on the shelves and the breweries that made it.

Things have changed. Now little breweries make lite beer and hard seltzer and big breweries make hazy IPAs. “David and Goliath” no longer describes the world of brewery size, either. We have massive brewery collectives, historically large regional breweries, former independents owned by companies known for making beer—but also soft drinks and cannabis products. The language of “craft” is no longer adequate to describe breweries or the beer they make.

And we in the public, and especially in the media, are not obliged to use those words. It actually leads to confusion now, not clarity. if you read this blog closely, you’ll notice that I’ve stopped using the words “craft beer” and “craft brewery.” I talk about the BA’s membership, because they have great data on them, and I am likewise happy to talk about the “craft” segment, which still performs a useful function in distinguishing product categories.

When they only made one style of beer, breweries in the U.S. used to categorize their products as “premium,” “superpremium,” and I don’t know what all. It was useful language within the industry to identify how trends were developing. But it had no meaning or use outside the industry because these were really marketing categories that had nothing to do with the beer inside the cans. That’s where we are with beer—“craft” is useful inside the industry where it has a very specific meaning.

It is very important for both the health of a market and for the culture of beer to have small family breweries. They don’t have to cater to lowest common denominator tastes. They develop new styles and preserve old traditions from the ravages of industrialization. I am a giant fan of little breweries!

But they are just breweries. They just make beer. And, for what it’s worth, big breweries also just make beer. In using the “craft” framework, I think people got into the habit of thinking that what happened in large plants was some kind of industrial-scale chemical synthesis, not brewing. That was wrong as well, and led to other misconceptions.

“Craft beer” is a conceptual cul de sac. We started using it with good intentions, but with a naïveté about how brewing works and how markets function. It now causes more trouble than it’s worth. I don’t have any problem with the Brewers Association using the terms in their marketing—I certainly would if I were them—but we should recognize it for what it is. I encourage members of the media to consider using different language. It will make us all understand beer better.