Tuesday, 8 January 2013
The Orwellian world of craft beer
I've had to raise an eye brow or two recently at the blogs of British craft brewers.
Brewdog have been proudly showing off pictures of their big new craft brewery, which looks suspiciously like any other modern brewery: gleaming stainless steel, 40000 L cylindroconical fermenters, centrifuge, high degree of automation. All great kit I'm sure, and it should turn out a huge amount of beer with ease, but how exactly is it craft?
"craft. noun . 1. an activity involving skill in making things by hand"
Perhaps the craft bit is the poorly painted murals on the office walls?
Meanwhile over in Cumbria Hardknott Dave has been declaring cask beer to be obsolete, preferring a more modern alternative i.e. keg. Now adding CO2 from a gas bottle may well make for a more consistent product but how exactly does removing the importance of skilled cellarmanship and natural carbonation make beer more craft? Consistency is good but isn't beer served from kegs less craft compared to beer served from casks? Doesn't abandoning cask to get rid of the lows also mean getting rid of the highs?
The gap between what the word craft means, and how it is increasingly used in relation to beer, reminds me of Orwell's doublethink:
WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH
INDUSTRIAL IS CRAFT?
define "by hand" :-)
ReplyDeleteMaybe craft ought to abandon "by hand" and declare itself "off the wrist"
ReplyDeleteLike "I just knocked this off the wrist, want to taste it?"
That would explain those odd flocculated heads you sometimes get on beer.
DeletePerhaps this post should have been "The Onanistic world of craft beer"!
ReplyDeleteThis is a craft handmade email, Ed. Never mind the intermediary of the entire internet. Or the keyboard.
ReplyDeleteMaybe "designer" beer rather than "craft", like 1980's Don Johnson in Miami Vice. His look was mass produced but "designer", which meant trendier, rolled up jacket sleeves, no socks, loafers with a suit, pet crocodile on a boat, cool and a bit different. Not the regular boring brown look of regular cops.
ReplyDeleteI think "Pet Crododile on a Boat" *is* the latest from Brewpooch.
ReplyDeleteSounds like a feature article on craft beer is overdue in Stylish Masturbator magazine.
ReplyDeleteWell, all commercial beer is industrial, regardless of the scale and equipment used. It has always been.
ReplyDeleteI disagree. 'Craft' and 'industrial' do have different meanings, and craftsmen existed before industrialisation.
ReplyDeleteI'm have my doubts if there's any point making the distinction as far as beer goes though.
There's no distinction when it comes to beer. If you don't consider the specifics of each, Foster's is made in pretty much the same fashion as something from The Kernell, but in a much larger scale. And there's nothing, other than a few adjustments in the gear perhaps, that can technically prevent whoever it is that makes Foster's in England to make the kickassest BIPA or Imperial Stout (or whatever it is the flavour of the month among craftophiles).
DeleteAnd since the basic process of beer making has been more or less the same for much of history, it has always been industrial. Remember that "industry" didn't start with the steam engine.
Across different industries, am sure the craft definition could include anything that is a celebration of basic and traditional, but equally anything specialised or unconventional.
ReplyDeleteWith the exception of weaker less hoppy Punk IPA, there's no indication that BrewDog are becoming less unconventional as they expand (unless unconventional is their signature, which is a whole other subject...) so isn't it too early to tell if industrial scale plant precludes a beer from being considered craft?
Its unsurprising that people associate dumbed down processes and cheaper ingredients with mass produced beer but what if already interesting or unconventional beer is made on a massive scale? It would perhaps be easier to raise just one eyebrow... Oh, and to stick with both cask and Keykeg.
Is it just me Ed, or has your point been roundly and deliberately missed?
ReplyDeleteI don't know about deliberate, it wouldn't be the first time the point I'm trying to make has been missed. Sometimes the internet seems to cause more confusion than clarity.
ReplyDelete