Does the term “craft beer” still mean anything?

In 1986, American beer writer Vince Cottone published “Good Beer Guide: Brewers and Pubs of the Pacific Northwest.” In it, he introduced the term craft brewery, that was intended to address the methods by which the beers were brewed, differentiating them from the large industrial breweries.  Because craft breweries were understood to brew craft beer, that became a term of choice.

During a recent Zoom interview for a Bloomberg article on craft beer, the paraphrased question in the title of this blog was posed to me and Hall of Fame Vice President, Aaron Gore.  While Aaron and I may not agree on all the finer points hinted at by the question, as two of the Board Members of the American Craft Beer Hall of Fame, we certainly acknowledge that the term is still relevant and important.

In a blog article I posted back in September of 2024, I asked and answered the question, “What is Craft?”  A quick review: in the early days of the industry, the Association of Brewers (now the Brewers Association) defined craft breweries as those that produced fewer than 15,000 barrels per year.  Obviously, that baseline number has grown considerably over the years.

Another part of the craft beer definition was that no more than 25% of a craft brewery can be owned or controlled by an alcoholic beverage industry member who is not themselves a craft brewer.  Those lines became increasingly blurred as large, corporate brewers began buying up large, middle-tier craft breweries. 

The BA and others promptly fell back on the craft beer cornerstones of Small, Independent, and Traditional.  But these placed a hypocritical barrier in front of a handful of American regional brewers who have been small, independent and traditional -for the better part of a century or more.

The last pillar to fall was the artificial requirement that craft beer must be made from a minimum of 50% barley in order to qualify; that finally happened in 2014.

So here we are, over a dozen years later, and almost fifty years since the very first microbrewery opened in California.  We now have an entire generation of young adults of drinking age who grew up never NOT knowing about craft beer.  Unless their parents bored them with their woeful stories about having only corporate “fizzywater” to drink, they likely have no idea that there was a time when beer choices were limited to brand names.  They likely have little idea what the distinction is between quality consumption and quantity consumption, other than cost.

On a parallel plane, these young consumers’ attention is being diverted by all the cheap, fruity, and sugary RTDs, malt beverages, and the newer alternative, THC drinks.  This generation has little knowledge or appreciation for what has come before, and how we got to where we are now.

So, yes, the term Craft Beer still means something.  And it’s part of our mission to make sure it continues to mean something for as long as we need to.