Beer Nut: Do you drink ‘craft’ beer? - MassLive.com

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Do you drink “craft” beer? Does it matter if you do?

The reason I put the word “craft” in quotation marks is that the term “craft beer” has several definitions, depending on who you ask.

There is the hardline business definition as dictated by the Brewers Association. This one is necessary for legal and other practices. It’s a fair definition and serves a solid purpose.

However, a recent report from the association gave me pause. Not because of anything incorrect in it, but rather the way certain bits of information hit me. The report featured several charts about the best-selling beers in the U.S., one about the best-selling overall breweries and one specifically about craft breweries.

As usual, in the overall chart, the big breweries held the top spots, with only Boston Beer (Sam Adams), Sierra Nevada and Yuengling making the top 10.

Wait. Yuengling?

Yes, the oldest brewery in the country qualifies as a craft brewery under the Brewers Association’s rules. Now, most craft beer drinkers don’t think of Yuengling when they enter a craft beer bar, but that’s not the brewery’s fault. I would even hazard a guess that Yuengling makes very few, if any, craft drinker’s top-10 list of craft breweries. Maybe not even many top-50 lists.

I’ve never even heard it mentioned in discussions I’ve had about people’s favorite beers. (This is not a knock on the brewery at all here, just reporting my experiences in how it’s viewed in the craft beer community.)

But it does meet the association’s criteria, so no big deal.

But wait, when we compare the two lists, another eyebrow-raiser pops out: Founder’s Brewing comes in at No. 12 on the overall list, but isn’t on the craft beer list at all. This is because in 2014, 30% of Founder’s was sold to Mahou-San Miguel, a big brewery in Madrid, Spain. This partial ownership by a non-craft brewer means the Brewers Association no longer considers Founder’s brews as craft beer.

Similarly, New Belgium is not “craft” anymore. Again, this is because of how the association defines “craft” beer. In late 2019, New Belgium was sold to an Australasian subsidiary called Lion Little World Beverages, and owned by Japan’s Kirin Holdings. This meant it was no longer independent.

However, I’d guess that most craft beer drinkers still consider both breweries to be “craft.” I know that I do. Again, it’s semantics, but I bet the people who work at Founder’s and New Belgium still think they brew craft beer.

What do you think? Let me know at geolenker@yahoo.com.

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