From microbrews into craft beer

March 22, 3:27 PMDallas Craft Beer ExaminerPaul Hightower

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Astute readers will notice a subtle change here: The Examiner admins have renamed all their “Microbrews Examiners” to “Craft Beer Examiners.”

Although the two terms are virtually synonymous, they have slight differences in connotation. The new designation was chosen after some brief consultation with the Examiners themselves in an effort to remain current with the industry trends.

From microbrews…

As already covered, microbrews do have an official definition put forth by the Brewers Association trade group. This term describes a small brewery that produces up to 15,000 barrels of beer annually, and this is more than adequate to describe most of the breweries operating across the country.

But microbrews is almost a dated expression at this point. The word was born of the 1980s and 1990s microbrewery industry that arose after federal legalization of homebrewing and a general relaxing of state licensing that followed for small local and regional brewers.

Some of these early microbreweries are still around today, but most ceased operations long ago. Many of those first companies were playthings of wealthy entrepreneurs and venture capitalists, and in those days it was uncertain just how long this “microbrew” fad would last.

…into craft beer

Today, the preferred term catching hold across the industry for the same product is craft beer. Although the initial prospective bubble left many promising microbreweries behind, the boutique fad has now turned into a legitimate business and domain within the food and drink sector.

Craft beer implies more of an artesianal product, one produced locally and by a small business rather than with high-end industrial practices. It implies regional instead of national, and folds very nicely into the larger Slow Food movement on the rise in the U.S. The phrase possesses a connotation of quality shared by meat from an actual butcher, bread from the local bakery or fresh vegetables from the co-op.

And so we will mark the shift in our thinking at this point, and refer instead to craft beer now and in the future. Of course, the hope is that someday the “craft” will become so widely recognized and respected that the simple name of beer will be sufficient to refer to our own familiar high-quality product.

Cheers!

paul@scientist.com