Craft: An Argument: Why the term 'Craft Beer' is completely undefinable, hopelessly misunderstood and absolutely essential

[St00]

Hello brewers and brewsters

I've just finished reading Craft: An Argument: Why the term 'Craft Beer' is completely undefinable, hopelessly misunderstood and absolutely essential by Pete Brown.

It's not the longest of books at 209 pages, but definitely worth a read if you're interested in the line between reputation, marketing, trend beers and what it means to take pride in your work, but still need to sell a product. It's a warm read and the author's love of Beer (both traditional and modern) genuinely leaps off the page.

It's not a homebrew book so it doesn't have recipes, but it struck a chord with me, especially when it comes to using the term "Craft" in a snooty sense of the word.

Given its small size relative to its price I was going to give it 9 out of 10, but it was self-published (His publishers didn't think there was a market for it) at the height of lockdown and it's just won the author "Best Beer Book from the North American Guild of Beer Writers Awards 2020", so in brief retrospect it's a 10 out of 10.

 

[chthon]

From Martyn Cornell...

 

[Galena]

I have not read the book but....
I was in a local pub recently, it is a free house that sells some really good local micro brewery ales and a local Pilsner, the landlord keeps his ales very well and takes pride in them.
When I said how I love craft ales, he commented that he didn't like craft beer because it was over hyped, over priced, and often too strong. Until then I just considered any decent micro produced beer to be craft ale, but then I did see his point and so for me now I think that way, so I consider that I like real ale but am no fan of craft ales. Certainly going by another thread and other places where paying crazy money seems perfectly normal to some I tend to think he was right. If people enjoy paying £12 a pint and think they are getting something special and take pleasure from that then fine but I will still prefer a good micro brewery real ale of which there is such good choice for less than £4 a pint

 

[PhilBrew]

I've not read the book yet either, but I've been reading Pete Brown's work for a while now and like his writing style enough to be easily convinced to read anything else he puts out ... so thanks for the pointer

He may not have mentioned the experience he had in Chesterfield a few years ago in this latest book ... so I'll point you at his blog post about it there (link), and to the rest of his blog in case you've not seen it before, in return for your recommendation:hat:

Cheers, PhilB

 

[Braufather]

Never heard of this guy until now. Cheers looks like there’s loads of reading to catch up on.

 

[DavidHatton]

He wrote a book on IPA a few years back, and has some video's on youtube.