What’s in name?
Micro, nano, craft
This month’s issue of Beer Advocate magazine declaims the use of the word “craft” in favor of re-taking the word beer.
But why does it matter? Why not just call it beer? Let’s make Anheuser-Busch or MillerCoors (BMC) change the term for their industrial water lagers.
For one, they spill more beer (heck, their customers spill more beer) than the craft brewers make combined. And despite two distinct periods of phenomenal growth, most people in this country haven’t tasted Widmer, Stone or even Sam Adams products. We can’t fool ourselves that the fight is won. It’s akin to two Allstrom’s striding onto the field of battle (pardon the war analogies) and telling the huge army in front of him that they best walk away.
The BMC will continue to lose ground as customers taste beer with flavor. I have no doubt that people will keep switching. In ones and twos, maybe, but the tide has turned. But until the point when more people drink craft beer than industrial, the brand needs to stay differentiated. And don’t kid yourself that “craft” isn’t a brand. It is. It is a permeable border at times. But most of the time, industrial works in it’s yard and “craft” plays in it’s yard.
I can understand the argument if “craft” doesn’t convey the appropriate nuance for the growing yard it occupies. Then a new term should be brainstormed. I had no problem with abandoning the term “micro-brewery” when the movement had awesome beers made at all different levels of brewery size. In fact, size is probably not the best way to classify quality anyway. If it is needed, there can be size categories for breweries if it is helpful to measure the overall health or growth of our cottage industry.
I wish I could come up with a great name but Don Draper I am not. To me “craft” means made with pride. It is the opposite of economies of scale and tanker trucks. And until someone finds a better word in the dictionary, I will stick with “craft”.
