Craft Beer or crafty labeling?

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Moley

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So I was in Lidl yesterday morning, and alongside all the Hobgoblin, Spitfire and other mass market bottled beers I spotted a Hatherwood Ruby Rooster at 99p for 500ml, so I put one in the trolley. The label says Craft Ale, and tells you to store it out of direct sunlight.

I tried it at lunchtime. An unremarkable ruby ale, "traditionally craft brewed using Burton water, 100% British barley and a blend of Pale, Crystal and Chocolate malts" and with Fuggle, Golding, Cascade and Styrian hops.

Then I tried googling this Hatherwood brewery. Seems it's brewed for Lidl by Wychwood :wha:

So how is that Craft Ale?
 
Was the beer good though? Seen them few times and was tempted by the price, but never gave in. I like some of Wychwood beers so maybe will give it a try now that I know they brew it :wha:
 
I think 'Craft' is one of those words that has been hijacked by marketing men, and sadly has devalued the meaning. So today anything could be called craft or crafted. Even a Ford Mondeo.
 
sqrson said:
Was the beer good though? Seen them few times and was tempted by the price, but never gave in.
Nothing special, but quite acceptable for a quid.

As awol said though, what is craft beer?

To me it implies small scale production using quality ingredients, it's probably going to be bottle conditioned and the head brewer most likely owns the business or it could be a small partnership. Couple of blokes in a large garage or small industrial unit.
 
as bobsbeer says I also believe the word 'craft' has been highjacked by the ad-men just to increase the cost of the product to the consumer. And it can be used for anything .. for instance Marstons has introduced a 'craft' lager (Revisionist Craft Lager)...now that really IS extracting-the-urine. And I believe that Fullers' is also jumping on the bandwagon with a new lager called Frontier which is promoted as a: 'new wave craft lager'

On the website for my brewery (which I hope to hope running on a small scale soon) I do not use the word 'craft', in-fact I've set my Auto-correct to replace 'craft' with 'artisan', as I am a 'skilled person creating something by hand'.
 
One idea would be for Siba to come up with a phrase, such as 'Arisan brewed' trademark it, and allow breweries under a certain size use it...
 
Most (if not all) things brew dog do are 'borrowed' from others, so I don't imagine that's any different!
 
Craft Beer.... now there's a term ripe for marketing folk to grab by the balls and squeeze the life out of.

Craft should be "A beer specifically created by a Master Brewer, created using the finest ingredients and brewed using knowledge and experience to produce a beer worthy of the name"

What we get is "Thrown together by working out what surplus ingredients are left in the stores using a back of a fag-packet recipe. Hyped up marketing and a fancy label will sell the product even if it tastes like ****."

Time to reclaim the title Craft!

Edit to add: I like Artisan Crafted :D
 
Agree with Bitter Lover we need our own licensed defined term. As members have stated "Craft" beer is an US term and has been used successfully over there to promote real ale away from the major brewers. The US definition can be found here http://www.brewersassociation.org/pages/business-tools/craft-brewing-statistics/craft-brewer-defined. However, over here it seems to mean jack and is just another marketing term. The same, arguably, is happening with the term 'Micro Brewery' to a certain extent. Went on a Greene King tour (enjoyed the tour), however they proudly stated how they have set a micro brewery to brew more esoteric brews. Now I understand that micro really defines the amount that can be brewed from the setup, however it is part of the one of the largest brewers in the UK, so to me and I guess how I've grown up with the concept of micro, Greene King shouldn't be using this term. I don't know, but I would guess other breweries are doing the same.
 
Moley said:
So I was in Lidl yesterday morning, and alongside all the Hobgoblin, Spitfire and other mass market bottled beers I spotted a Hatherwood Ruby Rooster at 99p for 500ml, so I put one in the trolley. The label says Craft Ale, and tells you to store it out of direct sunlight.

I tried it at lunchtime. An unremarkable ruby ale, "traditionally craft brewed using Burton water, 100% British barley and a blend of Pale, Crystal and Chocolate malts" and with Fuggle, Golding, Cascade and Styrian hops.

Then I tried googling this Hatherwood brewery. Seems it's brewed for Lidl by Wychwood :wha:

So how is that Craft Ale?

Probably was brewed in burton then if they are saying that is used Burton water. Marstons is in Burton and is the same company as Wychwood now.
 
I rather like the term "Artisan Brewed". Maybe if SIBA don't want to take it on, then CBA should. Not sure how much it costs to trademark something.
 
Even the word 'Artisan' sounds pretentious a bit like Harry Enfields 'I saw you coming' shop in London, selling any old tat for a massive price to people that don't know any different but think they are getting something unique, different and special. Sounds like it might come from a Medieval Moroccan Souk so it must be unique and EXPENSIVE.

Try buying an 'artisan' beer in a London pub nowadays and you'll be lucky to spend under a fiver.

Surely there is a better term for good British Beer, brewed by small independent brewers etc? What about 'Independently brewed British' beer or something equally as catchy (can you tell I'm not a marketing man) ! :D

I think the word 'craft' beer has come from the Mercans who were tired of drinking Bud & Millers **** water, it's now used by the media to describe what is happening with the resurgence of traditional and not so traditional ales across the globe, the market is growing and one main reason for its growth is that the brewing industry has decided to jump on the 10-15 year old 'craft beer revolution' bandwagon to grab some profit while it lasts.
 
It's a complete non-debate I'm afraid.

The term probably came from the states, yes, but it certainly would not have been as a replacement term for "real ale", well not as we would know it - there are more people who have been to space than beer engines in the USA...

brewtim said:
I think the word 'craft' beer has come from the Mercans who were tired of drinking Bud & Millers **** water, it's now used by the media to describe what is happening with the resurgence of traditional and not so traditional ales across the globe

That seems pretty close to the mark to me.

Regardless, it's as much a nonsense as "real ale". CAMRA and the "official" "real ale" definition served a purpose at one point in history because there was just so much sh*te out there. The definition is now bent to the will of the mega-corps brewers who stick to the letter of the "real ale" law to produce the lowest common denominator "real" ale they possibly can, nice and bland for the masses, nice and cheap to produce and riding on the back of what was once a mark of quality to gain the biggest market share and margin for the shareholders.

"Real ale" defines not just a narrow band of manufacture, package and service of beer but also the problem with definitions. As soon as you define it, you provide the gateway to abuse the definition.

Craft beer as we have known it was about the good stuff that didn't necessarily fit the real ale definition either in style, manufacture, package or service but was, of its own right, damn good beer.

Not now the marketeers have their hands on it.

It is an intractable problem. Unless the definition is suitably tight it is open to abuse. Unless the definition is suitably loose it stifles the creativity and innovation that defined it in the first place.

Size of brewery? Won't work. Coors will just run "craft sh*te brewers ltd" as a small output brewery in an industrial unit as a wholely owned subsidiary.

Independently brewed? Says nothing for the quality of the final product.

Artisan brewed? What defines an artisan? Big brewers will just pay big money to hire an artisan to oversee...

Finest ingredients? Ha! Its all the same stuff!

The reality is quite simply that whatever term and definition goes behind it, the big boys will abuse it.

The various assertions that craft beer has greater meaning in the US is also nonsense - Anheuser Busch have plenty of "craft beer" on the market, kind of proving that last point.

Real ale lives on, fat, lazy, geriatric and drawing a generous pension from Greene King and the other big factories. Craft beer is now on the inexorable wane into the marketing mush of the big factories too.

There is only one way to ensure the success and future of decent beer and that's to cut through the marketing **** and only buy from the real independent brewers of interesting and quality beer.

Instead of SIBA or the CBA wasting efforts on definitions which will be hijacked anyway, focussing their efforts on promoting transparency in the market would be a far better use their time. Allow the customer to choose what sort of brewery and what sort of ethic is behind their beer.

Big bold and brash they may be, but I'll take a brash, showy, but honest-about-it Brewdog beer over some mass produced lowest common denominator p*sswater brewed by a fake brewery (even if that is Wychwood who actually do know how to make a craft beer) for the cheapest price any day of the week.

Shame on Wychwood, an otherwise excellent brewery. :(
 
Agree with Calumscott.

It's up to us to decide what any descriptive term means and up to us to see through the marketing bulls**t.
 
Yes indeed, read-through the bullshi*.

All I know (and all my potential new customers need to know is)... "I brew good beer, me".
 
tommidolcetto said:
It's up to us to decide what any descriptive term means and up to us to see through the marketing bulls**t.

I agree with this, but we are in the tiny tiny minority that know our beer, the rest of the population know fcuk all about it, other than it tastes like beer and gets you merry, we the tiny minority, unfortunately, cannot change the world, we can only forge on with what we know and seek out and support the 'real' beer.

Tis funny that the historical meaning of ale is an alcoholic beverage fermented from unhopped wort, whereas beer is an alcoholic beverage fermented from hopped wort. So what does that make 'real ale' ? Huh?

:wha:
 
brewtim said:
Tis funny that the historical meaning of ale is an alcoholic beverage fermented from unhopped wort, whereas beer is an alcoholic beverage fermented from hopped wort. So what does that make 'real ale' ? Huh?

:wha:

This is something that I have been pondering, I know terms can change their meanings over the years,but does anyone brew a traditional (craft) ale?
 
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