In the Not-Too-Distant Past of Craft
If you could go back to the past, say circa 2001, and show yourself what the craft beer landscape would look like in just fifteen years, would past you believe future you?
Back then, craft beer was still a pretty tiny niche defined by values like tradition, artisanship, innovation, big flavors, and not being corporate beer.
To make it back then, a brewer had to not only be a plucky business owner, he or she had to have a stick-it-to-the-man kind of ostentation. As a craft drinker, I learned to disdain adjuncts like corn or rice. I learned to expect good beer to come in glass bottles.
I was living in Portland, OR, then, and the hipster culture of the time would drink PBR from the can as a way to sort of bridge the working class culture they wanted to appropriate while still avoiding what they saw as the “Big Guys.”
But today, I look at the May/June 2017 cover of Zymurgy, the journal of the American Homebrewers Association, and I see a picture of a Mexican lager alongside a kölsch and a New England IPA, and a headline along the bottom that reads, “Brewing with Rice.” By the time you get to page 10, there’s an ad for Uinta’s Hop Nosh IPA, proudly pictured in its yellow-green can.
And, of course, we’re many years into the phenomenon of craft brewers selling ownership stakes to the corporations.
What’s happened to craft beer? Has it gotten too commercial? Is it losing its soul and becoming more and more like its erstwhile opposition?
Ask the Right Question
Aristotle said that a good question contains half the answer already, meaning if you ask your question properly, you’ll be closer to finding the right answer than if you ask it improperly.
I don’t think the right question is, “Has craft gotten too commercial?” Rather, I think a better way to ask the question is, “Was craft ever really anti-commercial?”
A clever reader will notice I’ve subtly slipped in “commercial” as a synonym for “corporate.” In fact, they’re not synonymous. In logic terms, we’d say that “corporate” entails “commercial,” that is, the idea of being commercial comes along with being corporate. The same isn’t true in the reverse direction. You can be commercial without being corporate.
Obviously, some craft brewers are still very anti-corporate, and the mergers and acquisitions continue to cause a lot of controversy within the industry. Against the argument that it’s just about brewers finding ways to grow their businesses, some claim that it’s all about the cash and others, more subtly, say that megabrewers are out to devalue craft in order to regain their own brand equity.
The potential threat of corporate beer for craft beer is an important conversation, but it’s not the same as the conversation about whether commercialism poses a threat to craft beer.
“Commercialism” itself can actually entail a number of concepts. At its most basic, it really only means that you intend to make some kind of profit through commerce. At a broader level, it often suggests cynical sales ploys, appeals to our base instincts and fears, or shyster tricks.
Posing the question in terms of commercialism, I think we can agree that craft brewers were never against making a profit, they just tend to flinch at the idea of making money through shifty, sneaky, or otherwise ignoble means.
That also helps us see that the growing openness to adjuncts and to cans demonstrates the maturity of the craft market.
Corporate Confessionals and the New Craft Sensibility
That is, craft beer has “grown up” enough that craft brewers and drinkers no longer have to pretend that their identity depends upon keeping as far from megabrew as possible. Instead, you get “confessions” of drinking this or that corporate beer, followed by attempts to brew one’s own version – hence the proliferation of lawnmower beers in the craft aisle.
You’re more likely to hear people talking about different beers suiting different occasions. A crushable pale lager – in a crushable can – suddenly seems like a great idea for a backyard BBQ, after a hike, or at the beach.
You also see adjuncts like corn and rice sneaking into recipes through a couple backdoors, namely, tradition and health. These ingredients need not signal “cost cutting” or “flavorless” or “cheap.” Instead, they can harken back to the early colonial days when corn or rice were easier to source than barley.
Jim Eckert of Eckert Malting & Brewing developed an all-rice beer for his gluten-intolerant wife. (You can find recipes and malted rice on glutenfreehomebrewing.org). As someone, personally, who’s on an allergy elimination diet and very worried that gluten will be a problem, I’m very interested to watch this trend, though I admit to doubts about it being an adequate replacement for barley-based beer.
The More Things Change . . .
Not everyone, of course. Some people are going to stay devoted to the glass bottle and keep their distance from rice or corn. And that’s fine. That’s part of the market having matured – suddenly there are enough craft beer drinkers that all these approaches can have their day and find their audience.
And some important craft sensibilities stay constant. Jim Eckert saw brewing a gluten-free beer as a challenge to overcome. That is, he approached it as an artisan, wrestling with his materials to test their capabilities and limits. Specialty beers still come out in those elegant and substantive glass bombers – I don’t see the Crowler becoming a widely adopted format for imperial stouts or barleywines.
The Good News
All this means that we craft beer people may be ready to finally be free of the pressure to not be corporate. We can chill out a little bit, enjoy being beer drinkers with our own distinctive tastes. Those guys over there want to brew with corn? God bless ’em. You go on with your Reinheitsgebot.
In my own personal journey from Portland to Chicago, I’ve had to get used to cans because that’s how beloved local brands like Revolution, Pipeworks, and Half Acre come to the shelves. But I still pour it into a glass.
I still have standards, after all.
Image by Itz via FreeImages.com
