Craft Versus Crafty: The Brewers Association Misstep

 Note: Post has updates (and more updates, and more...)

Can you tell if this is a craft brewery?

Yesterday the Brewers Association sent out a press release that rehashed a point they've made many times in the past: big brewers are peddling faux craft and this just isn't fair.  I have no idea what provoked the latest sortie, but this time the complaint has a really tone-deaf quality.  Craft beer already inspires cultish tendencies, and BA plays on that in spades here--right down to some creepy doublespeak.  You can follow the first link to read the whole thing, but I want to cherry pick a few sentences: 

• "An American craft brewer is defined as small and independent."
• "Witnessing both the tremendous success and growth of craft brewers and the fact that many beer lovers are turning away from mass-produced light lagers, the large brewers have been seeking entry into the craft beer marketplace."
• "[I]t’s important to remember that if a large brewer has a controlling share of a smaller producing brewery, the brewer is, by definition, not craft."
• The large, multinational brewers appear to be deliberately attempting to blur the lines between their crafty, craft-like beers and true craft beers from today’s small and independent brewers.

The Brewers Association has for decades been attempting to create the mental category of "craft beer."  They branded themselves that way and have been aggressive in promoting their definition.  But now here they use the passive construction to assert a bland truth about how a craft brewer "is defined," as if this comes a priori from the universe.  You invented "craft brewer," BA, so please own it.

Next they invent another new fiction, the "craft beer marketplace."  There is no such thing.  Large breweries do not have to "seek entry" into this fictive universe.  They sell beer, right there at the tap handle next to the imported Corona and the local micros.  They do not have to trawl the finer precincts where pubs bar the door to their kegs.  Finally, BA makes the unironic assertion that the big breweries are blurring lines.  Really?  Because it looks to me like these lines are pure inventions of the Brewers Association.

The response to this dictat was, even among the hardcore geek community, mixed.  There were articles, sharp blog posts, and lots of social media debate. Perhaps you even participated in it.

Here's what disturbs me.  The two parties involved in this debate are trying to sell me beer.   The BA has crafted a very strong, emotional brand and has attempted to hijack language ("craft brewery") as a way of enforcing it. As I think anyone who reads this blog knows, I am a huge fan of small brewers and a big critic of many of the practices of multinational beer companies.  But I reserve the right to make decisions about how I think about beer.  I get to call Goose Island and Widmer craft brewers if I wish. I decide whether a company makes good beer, and I get to ignore who the owner is. The Brewers Association may attempt to define categories of beer to benefit its members, but we don't have to accept it as fact.

Should consumers be aware that macros are setting up side brands to sell beer to a different target audience than their regular customers?  Yes.  Should the Brewers Association get to set the rules about what good beer is, who gets to make it, and what we should think about it?  That kind of answers itself, doesn't it?  All beer geeks want variety in the marketplace, competitiveness, and exceptional beer.  The Brewers Association is a powerful player in making sure that happens.  But we, as consumers, not the BA, have the final say over what good beer is, what craft beer is, and which breweries get to be called "craft."

___________________

Update: More commentary from around the beerosphere: brilliant post from across the pond; another skeptic; a faux craft brewer responds, appears real enough; and yet another skeptic.

Update 2: The plot thickens, as August Schell gets in on the action.  This is a must-read, and echoes a point I made three years ago.  Eric Steen posts some good thoughts, too.

Update 3:  And the debate continues.  Chris Staten at Draft Magazine, gets nuancey.  Sanjay takes the Brewers Association to task, but Ashley mounts a spirited defense.  Brian Leppla considers the "craft" question, and Stan, who says he has nothing new to add, decides to add something anyway.  The Motley Fool thinks about it in terms beer geeks don't.

To wrap things up, I'll point you to a very nice piece by Eric Gorski in the Denver Post that, more than anything I've read, lays out all the points in the debate.  Several days after the fact, I think it's pretty obvious that as a matter of messaging, last week's press release was a misfire by the Brewers Association.  It was designed to persuade, and it backfired even among many of its most ardent supporters.  I don't think anyone is averse to promoting (or even requiring) clear labeling information about where beer was brewed and by whom.  The mistake was way the message was delivered--surely a misdemeanor, not a felony--and something I hope they address in future communication.

The MSM is Dying Because it is Afflicted With Terminal Lameness

[rant]

A day or two ago, I received my complementary copy of Mix Magazine, the latest in a long line of doomed ventures the Oregonian--Portland's daily--has concocted to stave off death. If you don't live in Oregon, no worries; Mix is an example of a standard gambit dead-tree media have been deploying for years. It's a "lifestyle" zine, featuring scant, breezy words and large, colorful pictures. But mainly it's ads. The O has offered these free to subscribers as a way of "hooking" them so they'd subscribe after a few editions. It is certain to fail and the reasons read like a list of indictments against the whole enterprise of publishing.

Publishing was a model based on a simple balance of forces. Because information was hard to find, publishers occupied a primo spot: they could act as middlemen to put readers and advertisers together, taking shekels from both in the process. Genius! They have always been in the business of selling content to subscribers and subscribers to advertisers.

But it's not 1973 anymore. People do not have to depend on newspapers to feed them information, drip by drip, at the cost of a hundred ads. We no longer need newspapers, but newspapers can't get this through their thick heads. Instead, they compile advertising supplements, sprinkle a few two-month-old blog-post length pieces in, and ask us to shell out five bucks. Surely we'll see the value there? Surely?

Instead, of course, we go online where the same information is free and current and very often better. Rule of thumb: all things being equal, people will consume free content. I have no idea what might save the MSM. But Mix is definitel

[/end rant]

Update. It's always the most ill-considered post that get the most comments. Why? I should just add that my critique here is not with writers. God forbid! I would love to see a system emerge where we would get paid to do it. And I take no pleasure in the dozens of good writers who've lost jobs at the O in the past decade. My comment is directed squarely at the MSM for their failure to see how doomed things like the Mix are. I love reading about beer, wine, and food. The problem is, the Mix is not a publication that sates this need. It's purely designed to sell ad space, and the effort they put in attracting my eyeballs is so meager that it requires--or at least provoked--a rant. It would be great if John Foyston and Catherine Cole were unleashed to write serious pieces in the Mix. I'd pay for that! They're not, and I blame the Oregonian.

Lucky Beer

By the way, the beer that bullied Laughing Buddha into forsaking their name is an industrial Australian company whose product is pretty culturally insensitive. Behold:

"It’s an Asian influenced lager style, but it was born in Australia (the ‘Lucky Country’). It is at home in city bars, but lives all over the world. It also offers a truly unique proposition to everyone who comes into contact with it – share the good fortune.

"Rubbing Buddha’s tummy brings Good Luck!"

Buddha images are regularly appropriated for all kinds of things. For the most part, the appropriations are well-intentioned, as I took Laughing Buddha's to be. This, however, is a modern incarnation of Sambo's. It's a crass attempt to cash in on the ignorant misappropriation of a cultural/religious symbol. In substantial sections of the world, it will be held as offensive. The brewery couldn't care less about the Buddha except as a vaguely-transgressive marketing tool that tested well with young urban professionals who frequent night clubs. Pinheads.

Brewery Websites (Suck)

BridgePort unveiled a new website today. It is a Flash based, high-graphics site that I've no doubt Gambrinus spent a lot of money designing. I got a nice email announcing that it would be accompanied by a launch party, and another one saying it was live now--a day early.

Pretty much the only thing that's changed is the design. The info is roughly the same as that offered at the old site. Navigating through it, I had an epiphany: brewery websites suck. "Suck" is too strong a word, because they're actually very pretty. Many have now moved to the technique of offering professionally-produced videos, which for those who can't visit the brewery, are especially nice.

The problem is that the sites are designed to sell rather than inform. It is not dissimilar to the experience I used to have as a paid writer when a brewery would send me on a tour with a PR flack. She would hustle me around to the things I didn't want to see and talk about things like "strong brand identification" that I couldn't care less about. Whenever we'd get near to something I'd like to see--like the brewery--I'd feel a firm hand on my arm and feel myself getting dragged off to look at the latest label mock-up or something equally uninteresting.

On the other hand, when brewers showed me around, it was a revelation. They cared about the beer, the way the beer was made, how it was conceived, which ingredients went into it, and how it was evolving. After an hour with a brewer, I knew I would have to work to contain myself to the 800 words I was allotted.

Let's have a look at what BridgePort wrote about their brewery, shall we? This is it, in toto:

At BridgePort Brewing, we made our mark by evolving from a small microbrewery to a regional leader in the craft brewing market without losing focus on our end product, our award winning ales. With a focus and commitment to quality and consistency, we have earned the admiration of craft beer lovers, the respect of our competitors, and a shelf full of awards from international judges. As declared in our Pledge: "we stand for beer" -- brewed with the finest ingredients, all under the watchful eyes of passionate and committed brewers in the Nation. The BridgePort Brewmasters.* And we promise to produce the finest examples of American craft brewing with every beer that bears our name. Every Beer. Every Time.™

Now, keep in mind that this is about the brewery. That's it--there's nothing else. Did you just feel the arm of the PR flack take you away from the big room with the pretty copper and into a stuffy office with a woman and a plastic smile? And seriously (since this has turned into a full-fledged rant): "we stand for beer"? That's the best you got? I remember when Delta Airline's ad used to be "we get you there." This is just marginally better, and what it's doing in a description of the brewery is mystifying. Tell me about the brewery. Show me pictures. Tell me about the beer, who created it and what they were after. Tell me what's in it. Don't tell me that the

Okay, I've said my peace. BridgePort has a new website. They'll be so delighted they sent me an email letting me know. (Though it should be said that all the major breweries have similar websites, and I'm not just picking on BridgePort. Full Sail's is just as bad. Widmer's is as promotional, but does tell you about the beers in detail. Deschutes, as with so many other things, gets kudos as having the most data-rich website, but they could do with more info about their beer, particularly with regard to ingredients. And so on.)
_____________
*That's not really even a sentence, and why is Nation capitalized? Sure, typos riddle this site, but I'm not getting paid eighty grand to write copy for a national company.

The DSM-ing of Beer Styles

Every year, as American brewers get more creative with ingredients and methods of brewing, the brain trust in Denver tries to keep up with new style categories. As Stan points out, this year there are 11 more. The metastasizing of beer categories bears some resemblance to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, which began with 106 disorders and now contains 297. The unique variances among individuals dictate an infinite range of possibilities, and at a certain point, the DSM will create more confusion than clarity (many people feel we've passed that point). And so it is with beer styles.

The function of categories and styles is to bring some coherence to comparison. There's just too much difference between a doppelbock and an IPA to meaningfully compare them side by side. But what happens when a brewery uses an alt yeast for its doppel and tosses in a few extra new world hops. Is it still meaningful to make a new category, or just compare it with other doppels?

Reasonable people can disagree, but I want to lodge my own personal, perhaps futile, protest right now. Looking through the current list (.pdf), I can see absolutely no justification for these kinds of distinctions:

Light American Wheat Ale or Lager with Yeast

versus

Light American Wheat Ale or Lager without Yeast

Or the inclusion of these unnecessary categories:

Fresh Hop Ale (new)
Ales which are hopped exclusively with fresh and un-dried (”wet”) hops.

American-Belgo Styles Ales (new)
These beers portray the unique characters imparted by yeasts typically used in fruity and big Belgian-style ales.

Gluten-Free beer

Pumpkin Beer

Garden Beer (Garden beer? Because you have to distinguish between "pumpkin" and "garden"--someone might use zucchini!)

American Style- (pick one, they're all unnecessary: strong pale, IPA, imperial IPA, red/amber, etc.)

Here's the thing, a fresh hop ale, to take one example, is brewed in a recognizeable style--usually pale ale. It doesn't need its own category. American styles are distinguished from their British counterparts by their hop character solely. Every time we get a new hop, we have to come up with a new style? Absurd. And imperializing something (there are now 47 categories for "imperial" styles) means you've just made a strong ale, not an Imperial or Double India Pale Ale. For the love of Pete, just collapse these damn things. Gluten-free beer? Really?

I know that this creates a way for more breweries to win more medals, but that's actually a problem. I need six beers to win in the Light American Wheat Ale or Lager with (or Without) Yeast categories? No! It adds nothing to clarity and creates a huge headache for everyone involved as people try to figure out in which precise category a beer should be placed.

If I ruled the world, there'd be a lot more good beer available, but you'd know it by a lot fewer names.

[Note: post cleaned up for clarity of prose and bitterness of spleen.]