Blog Tracker
14-12-2016, 09:18
Visit the Boak and Bailey's Beer Blog site (http://boakandbailey.com/2016/12/craft-the-lost-word/)
https://i1.wp.com/boakandbailey.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/craftbeer_graphic.jpg?resize=650%2C429 There was a little flare*up on Twitter yesterday over this post by Richard Coldwell (https://ouhouse.wordpress.com/) in which he argues that Früh Kölsch is not*‘craft’. A few years ago, when this debate was at its frankly tedious height, we were pretty happy with the meaning of the phrase as derived from Michael Jackson and other early beer writers: it was a catch-all term referring to any interesting, distinctive beer, as opposed to the uninteresting, homogeneous products of larger (often international) brewers. (Definition 1 (http://boakandbailey.com/guides-lists/when-we-say-craft-beer-we-mean/).) Sure, you could pick holes in it, but it was a broad, inclusive buzz-phrase*that had room for cask ale, lager, Belgian beer, and for breweries founded 100 or more years ago.
But people who had the influence to shore up this definition opted out. They*didn’t like the term and wanted nothing to do with it, which is fair enough, except rather than making it go away, that left it undefended.
Sometime around 2014-2015 it became obvious that the meaning had changed: to most people in the UK,*‘craft beer’, insofar as it meant anything, meant beer that wasn’t real ale, that wasn’t*a pint of bitter,*that*wasn’t from an old brewery, and that*looked something like this:
https://i2.wp.com/boakandbailey.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/craft_collage.jpg?resize=650%2C217
(That is, definition 2 (http://boakandbailey.com/guides-lists/when-we-say-craft-beer-we-mean/).)
Yes, this situation*is messed up, and superficial, and especially baffling to people from outside Europe for whom our old brewing traditions are the epitome of craft. But it’s reality.
We like Richard’s blog — he writes regularly, interestingly, and tells us things we don’t already know, based on his own explorations — and we’re going to stick up for him here. Sure, we might have made the point a little more tentatively than he did but we don’t think, seen in context (he’s a bit disappointed with his craft beer advent calendar) that what he’s saying is especially outrageous, or even incorrect.
The fact is, in 2016, people*ordering a mixed mystery box of CRAFT BEER probably don’t expect to find Belgian, British or German standards in the mix — the kind of things that appeared in Michael Jackson’s various beer guides between*the 1970s and the 1990s. He certainly considered*Früh Kölsch*a craft, artisanal, boutique beer (all words he used at one point or another to mean essentially the same thing)*but, again, that broad definition has slipped away from us. Someone who got into beer in the last year or two, or who is just learning their way, would probably find it*baffling: to them*‘craft’ means, quite specifically, ‘A bit like BrewDog’*(or Stone, or Cloudwater — you get the idea).
The term got released into the wild, it evolved, and now it doesn’t care what you think it means even though you reared it from a cub. Or, to put that another way, you can’t reject and ridicule a term and then expect to police how it is used.
We blew it, chaps. Now we’ve got to live with it.
Craft: The Lost Word (http://boakandbailey.com/2016/12/craft-the-lost-word/) originally posted at Boak & Bailey's Beer Blog (http://boakandbailey.com)
More... (http://boakandbailey.com/2016/12/craft-the-lost-word/)
https://i1.wp.com/boakandbailey.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/craftbeer_graphic.jpg?resize=650%2C429 There was a little flare*up on Twitter yesterday over this post by Richard Coldwell (https://ouhouse.wordpress.com/) in which he argues that Früh Kölsch is not*‘craft’. A few years ago, when this debate was at its frankly tedious height, we were pretty happy with the meaning of the phrase as derived from Michael Jackson and other early beer writers: it was a catch-all term referring to any interesting, distinctive beer, as opposed to the uninteresting, homogeneous products of larger (often international) brewers. (Definition 1 (http://boakandbailey.com/guides-lists/when-we-say-craft-beer-we-mean/).) Sure, you could pick holes in it, but it was a broad, inclusive buzz-phrase*that had room for cask ale, lager, Belgian beer, and for breweries founded 100 or more years ago.
But people who had the influence to shore up this definition opted out. They*didn’t like the term and wanted nothing to do with it, which is fair enough, except rather than making it go away, that left it undefended.
Sometime around 2014-2015 it became obvious that the meaning had changed: to most people in the UK,*‘craft beer’, insofar as it meant anything, meant beer that wasn’t real ale, that wasn’t*a pint of bitter,*that*wasn’t from an old brewery, and that*looked something like this:
https://i2.wp.com/boakandbailey.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/craft_collage.jpg?resize=650%2C217
(That is, definition 2 (http://boakandbailey.com/guides-lists/when-we-say-craft-beer-we-mean/).)
Yes, this situation*is messed up, and superficial, and especially baffling to people from outside Europe for whom our old brewing traditions are the epitome of craft. But it’s reality.
We like Richard’s blog — he writes regularly, interestingly, and tells us things we don’t already know, based on his own explorations — and we’re going to stick up for him here. Sure, we might have made the point a little more tentatively than he did but we don’t think, seen in context (he’s a bit disappointed with his craft beer advent calendar) that what he’s saying is especially outrageous, or even incorrect.
The fact is, in 2016, people*ordering a mixed mystery box of CRAFT BEER probably don’t expect to find Belgian, British or German standards in the mix — the kind of things that appeared in Michael Jackson’s various beer guides between*the 1970s and the 1990s. He certainly considered*Früh Kölsch*a craft, artisanal, boutique beer (all words he used at one point or another to mean essentially the same thing)*but, again, that broad definition has slipped away from us. Someone who got into beer in the last year or two, or who is just learning their way, would probably find it*baffling: to them*‘craft’ means, quite specifically, ‘A bit like BrewDog’*(or Stone, or Cloudwater — you get the idea).
The term got released into the wild, it evolved, and now it doesn’t care what you think it means even though you reared it from a cub. Or, to put that another way, you can’t reject and ridicule a term and then expect to police how it is used.
We blew it, chaps. Now we’ve got to live with it.
Craft: The Lost Word (http://boakandbailey.com/2016/12/craft-the-lost-word/) originally posted at Boak & Bailey's Beer Blog (http://boakandbailey.com)
More... (http://boakandbailey.com/2016/12/craft-the-lost-word/)