Born from Foam

Why is everyone suddenly drinking craft beer and what is it anyway? On the Germanizing of a problematic term – and why blind taste tests are worthless.

It happened fast. Only two years ago hardly anyone knew how to use the term craft beer; today it is omnipresent. What was once called “premium,” is now “craft.” “Every other brewery believes that if they crumble a little more hops into their Helles (a kind of German light-colored beer) they can sell it for more,” laments Oliver Wesseloh, owner of a microbrewery in Hamburg. This kind of microbrewery produces at most 200,000 hectoliters (approximately 528,340 gallons) of beer in a year and has the advantage of a lower tax rate. Is this a reason to switch to the alleged hipster drink? Is craft beer purely a marketing strategy? No. And yes. Without question, the term has been overused in its brief lifetime in Germany. Not to mention it is a vague term.

It is unlike America, where bottom-fermented beer with low alcohol content, also known as lager, dominated the market in the sixties. In response, pubs produced their own beer: Craft beer was born from foam, so to speak. In German, “craft” means “self-made” or “handicraft.” With regard to the approximate 4,000 craft breweries, the American Brewers Association has determined that “an American craft brewer is small, independent, and traditional.” “Small” is defined as a maximum production of six million barrels per year, a figure equal to 9.5 million hectoliters. At most, 25 percent of the brewery may belong to a company, to ensure it is “independent.” And for the result to be “traditional” enough, a beer must mostly consist of the classic brewing ingredients of water, malt, hops and yeast. According to this definition, a little more than every 10th beer on tap in the U.S. is a craft beer today. Measured in dollars, that is 14 percent of the total beer revenue in the U.S. – a niche.

There are no concrete numbers for the German market, but it is certain that craft beer is even more of a niche product in its homeland. Almost all of the 1,349 German breweries could be designated as “small” according to the Brewers Association measure, even the large ones such as Paulaner, which counts for the production of about 3.5 million hectoliters (approximately 9.2 million gallons). Due to the German purity law, all of them already brew “traditionally.” “The starting point is completely different than in the USA. In light of our rich and long brewing tradition, other comparative measures would be required for Germany,” says Marc Rauschmann, owner of the company Braufactum, specializing in craft beer.

Is Craft Beer Really So Special?

Because it is not protected and trendy, the term can be used or abused by anyone. Food activist Hendrik Haase calls this craft washing, a variant of green washing. The phenomenon is not particularly new; for other food products the goal has been to make industrial products look as handmade as possible. Oliver Wesseloh of the Hamburg brewery Kehrwieder is also annoyed by such freeloaders: “I also count advertisers, designers, bankers, anyone who brews ‘crafty’ beer at these breweries, sticks a stylish hipster label on the bottle, and tries to force their mediocre product on the market.”

No better are the midsized breweries who allege to have produced craft beer all along, and additionally, “they brew without any inspiration, and in the seventies and eighties, when the deterioration of the German beer landscape took its toll, they took most the special beers out of their lineup and brewed only pilsner, helles, weizen, and bock – because no one allegedly wanted the special varieties anymore.”

Does “craft” mean the same as “unusual,” along with especially strong-tasting and alcoholic, extra hoppy beers such as the India Pale Ale? In the American scene, even the classic pilsner is hip, despite the fact that it tastes different than its counterpart from the major companies, just like bread from a baker tastes different than one from an industrial bakery. Not everyone likes that, especially if one is accustomed to the standard flavor of the beer industry. Can one really tell the difference between the two in a blind taste test? Marc Rauschmann waves the question off. Instead of it being about deciding right from wrong, it should be about variety. “And one can obviously recognize and taste variety.”

Due to its unclear definition and its abuse at times, the question occurs as to whether the term “craft” should be replaced. “Unfortunately, no,” argues Oliver Wesseloh. In the U.S., the term has long been established and its use is pervasive in Germany as well. One craft beer does not exist. But there are beers that are different and taste different. They fit well with a food culture that is about variety, naturalness, transparency and the close relationship between producer and consumer. Also, Rauschmann believes that unified standards for “German craft” are essential. He suggests defining craft beer with four cornerstones: owner-operated, transparency, having many varieties, and having natural raw ingredients. Last but not least it should be about “the customer seeing who the minds are behind the product.” That in turn fits well with the consumer’s desire for individuality. It seems like craft beers are here to stay.