Craft beer. I have regular conversations about the term in which I remind anyone remotely interested that, in most brewers’ minds, all beer is craft beer. Well, apart from Busweiser and the like. But essentially independent beer, that’s my point.
In this book, Pete Brown, one of modern beer writing’s most prolific authors, looks not just at that term craft beer, but hones in further on what craft means in other spheres, other types of manufacturing. Indeed, for long passages of the book, there’s no mention of beer at all.
I do accept that, despite my theory, the term craft beer is generally seen as a shorthand for modern keg brews, hazy IPAs, eye-wateringly alcoholic imperial stouts, and that new conumdrum the session IPA. And, as Pete notes, it comes with its own lexicon. “It has its own language, with hopheads drinking awesome, crushable beers, whether they be juice bombs, hazy bois, or whales, all while trying their best to avoid shelf turds and drain pours.” While the mainstream has invested heavily in branded glassware, he says, craft has made sure that anyone can see you’re drinking craft beer just by looking at its contents.
Most interesting is the idea that the arguments currently being about craft beer have applied to the term indie music over the past 30 years or so. I think in the end we are going to have to accept the term as an unsuitable, yet descriptive shorthand. As the book’s sub-title says: “Why craft beer is completely indefinable, hopelessly misunderstood, and absolutely essential.”
• Craft: An Argument is available via Good Reads.
