What is Craft Beer

[aleandhearty]

Mark my words, boring brown bitters will make a comeback!

Here in Yorkshire, if you take the specialist alehouses out of the equation, you could argue they've never gone away, with vast numbers of pubs selling nothing else. No doubt there will be 'new wave' BBB's from the craft beer movement at some stage and a tedious validation process to accompany them.

[trainman]

Here in Yorkshire, if you take the specialist alehouses out of the equation, you could argue they've never gone away, with vast numbers of pubs selling nothing else. No doubt there will be 'new wave' BBB's from the craft beer movement at some stage and a tedious validation process to accompany them.

New wave Brown IPA?
Brown - the new Black!

[Wittenden]

Here in Yorkshire, if you take the specialist alehouses out of the equation, you could argue they've never gone away, with vast numbers of pubs selling nothing else.

Craft beer, like heavy duty IPAs , seems to be a fairly urban/metropolitan phenomenon. Most of my drinking takes place in fairly rural locations,so I don't often come across the vanguards of beer hipsterism. Thank God.

[aleandhearty]

Here in Yorkshire, if you take the specialist alehouses out of the equation, you could argue they've never gone away, with vast numbers of pubs selling nothing else. No doubt there will be 'new wave' BBB's from the craft beer movement at some stage and a tedious validation process to accompany them.

New wave Brown IPA?
Brown - the new Black!

It was only a matter of time. I had a pint of Rat Brewery's Verminator last night in the Fernandes Tap. Described on the pump clip as...you've guessed it...a Brown IPA! (Rather nice, actually).

[Mobyduck]

Defining Craft Beer.
http://www.brewdog.com/blog-article/...t-beer-at-siba

[sheffield hatter]

Defining Craft Beer.
http://www.brewdog.com/blog-article/...t-beer-at-siba

Loved this comment: "so a craft beer is brewed by a craft brewery and a craft brewery is one that brews craft beer -- doooh"


None of the commenters mentioned point 1(a). What does "brews all their beers at original gravity" mean? Surely when you start the brewing process the wort has a specific gravity which is called the original gravity. Once the yeast starts to work on the sugars in the wort, the specific gravity reduces and the beer is no longer at its original gravity. When the process ends, the finished beer has a final specific gravity. The difference between the starting and finishing SG enables a calculation of the beer's strength to be made.

What point are they trying to make here?

[Mobyduck]

What point are they trying to make here?

Beats me

[Aqualung]

I've given up in trying to define what "Craft Beer"actually is but would just say that Doom Bore or Sam Smith's OBB certainly are not and some Adnam's products like Ghost Ship and their USA Wetherspoon's brews are.

To counter various comments about designer specs, beards (ironic or otherwise) and silly hats, I would like to point out that the brewer at my soon to open local brewery (Wild Card) sports none of these. She is a young woman of mixed race who really knows her stuff. OK, I'll admit the bloke from Brewdog at Brodie's has a beard and sometimes sports a tea-cosy on his head, but you can't win them all!!

[oldboots]

None of the commenters mentioned point 1(a). What does "brews all their beers at original gravity" mean? Surely when you start the brewing process the wort has a specific gravity which is called the original gravity. Once the yeast starts to work on the sugars in the wort, the specific gravity reduces and the beer is no longer at its original gravity. When the process ends, the finished beer has a final specific gravity. The difference between the starting and finishing SG enables a calculation of the beer's strength to be made.

What point are they trying to make here?

Presumably this refers to high gravity brewing where the finished beer is diluted, so that for example a beer is brewed at an OG of 1080 and the finished beer is watered down to the equivalent strength of one brewed at 1040. Courage used to do this at the Bristol brewery in the 1980s where some of a high gravity brew was diluted to make Directors and the rest diluted a bit more to make Best Bitter, they also did it earlier in London where Imperial Russian Stout was watered to make Velvet Stout. I don't know who does it these days but Brewdog must suspect its use somewhere.

As I think Tandleman pointed out, how does this work with freeze distillation as used by........ err Brewdog.

[oldboots]

I've given up in trying to define what "Craft Beer"actually is but would just say that Doom Bore or Sam Smith's OBB certainly are not and some Adnam's products like Ghost Ship and their USA Wetherspoon's brews are.

To counter various comments about designer specs, beards (ironic or otherwise) and silly hats, I would like to point out that the brewer at my soon to open local brewery (Wild Card) sports none of these. She is a young woman of mixed race who really knows her stuff. OK, I'll admit the bloke from Brewdog at Brodie's has a beard and sometimes sports a tea-cosy on his head, but you can't win them all!!

I thought it had been defined as "any beer that tastes of grapefruit"