Brewery Profile: The Preliminaries - What Does It Mean To Be A Craft Brewery

“Craft beer” is an interesting phrase. We instantly know what it means, yet anyone, even the marketing whizzes in the beer industry responsible for such word-crafting as “worthmore”, would struggle to define it. Oh, we can come up with a marketing definition, a product category, of “craft beer” – in fact The Brewers Association has done just that, and we discussed it here. We talked about how this definition outlines three categorical limitations for breweries: production limits (under 2 million barrels per year), ownership limits (25% or less ownership by non-craft brewery), and quality limits (must produce all-malt, as opposed to adjunct-riddled beer)*. We also said then, and reiterate now, that this definition seems to focus on an objective specification of a product class, rather than a true definition of the phrase. To be more precise, we could (and probably should) call breweries that conform to The Brewers Association definition “small” rather than “craft” – the two are not synonymous, and this definition merely focuses on how big a brewery is and what it uses. Miller, or, if you prefer, Leinenkugel’s, wants to define “craft beer” or “craft brewing” as “having a variety of interesting styles of beer.” Now, as then, we will set aside this definition as patently absurd.**

We all know what “beer” is. Right? But “craft” presents more of a problem. Wikipedia defines craft as “a skill, especially involving practical arts. It may refer to a trade or particular art.” This is more useful. It presents three words that are useful in outlining a definition: skill, art, trade. Rearranging these words reveals a better definition:

craft beer: a trade involving the skilled art of brewing beer.

Even this definition takes some unpacking. What does it mean to be engaged in a trade? What do we consider to be skill? Where is the "art" in brewing beer? You will notice something about this definition. It has nothing to do with size or quantity, either in barrels or diversity of product line. Anheuser-Busch could be a craft brewery under this definition. As you will see, whether it is or not is entirely a decision best left to the marketplace.

Trade

A trade is an occupation requiring skilled work. To say that a craft brewer is engaged in a craft must necessarily imply that the brewer performs his (or her) task as an occupation. Of course, The Brewers Association definition addresses this issue squarely. Yet, we are presented with the interesting question as to whether a brewer who is not engaged in brewing as a profession or occupation can truly be considered a craft brewer. The obvious answer seems to be “no.” If for no other reason than logic would preclude that a non-professional brewer could not possibly be sufficiently skilled in the art. More technically, however, such a brewer would not (could not) be a “craft” brewer, but rather a skilled, artistic brewer (perhaps we can call them “artisan brewers”); the very definition of “craft” requires that the brewer be engaged in the profession. Thus, engagement in brewing as a “trade” presents a sort of barrier of entry. Yet, the craft brewer must be more than engaged in the trade, for many professional brewers are neither skilled nor artistic.

Skill

Skill is “learnt capacity or talent to carry out pre-determined results.” A brewery that cannot consistently carry out predetermined results, a brewery that cannot reproduce its successes, is not skilled – it is lucky. Luck is not craft. However, skill can be learned. One can get better at the skill of brewing beer.

At the end of the day, skill is not the hard part. One can be engaged in the trade of brewing and be very good at it, but could still not be a craft brewer. A person can be very good at tracing works of visual art, but that doesn’t make him an artist; it just makes him a conservationist. As one of the foibles of the English language, we do not have a separate word for highly skilled professional brewers. But nonetheless, such a brewer has not yet met the definition of “craft.”

Art

Anyone can follow a recipe and create less than two million barrels of a fermented malted barley beverage and fall within The Brewers Association’s definition of “craft beer.” But “art” is more than following a recipe. Art is “made with the intention of stimulating the human senses as well as the human mind; by transmitting emotions and/or ideas.” Thus, the craft brewer must intend to stimulate the senses and the human mind, to transmit emotions and ideas through the brewing of beer.

Rather lofty ambition, no?

It would be impossible to set out an objective definition of “art.” Mankind has tried for thousands of years, and at the end of the day, only the intent of the artist and the willing acceptance of the audience can determine artistic merit.*** Thus, even this definition falls prey to the same issues identified in The Brewers Association definition. Namely, how is the intent of the brewer to be determined? For The Brewers Association, this issue is problematic because that particular organization is tasked with fitting breweries into a product category; a task ill-suited for such subjective standards. For our purposes however, this is not a problem at all: we can determine the intent of the brewer by simply asking questions and evaluating the responses and coming up with our own determination.

It is with this purpose in mind, to ask questions that probe the skilled and artistic nature of the brewing enterprise, that we bring to you the MBR Brewery Profile. In this feature, we will ask questions and leave to you to evaluate the responses within the context of the craft brewing definition(s). Hopefully you will find the answers you are looking for, and in any event these promise to be entertaining and enlightening.

On Friday we will present the first profile in this series: Furthermore Beer.


*This definition would eliminate many of the small breweries here in Wisconsin that use corn in any significant portion of the grain bill to lighten the flavors of their beers.

** Not to be dismissive, but even setting aside the vague terms “variety” and “interesting” the focus is on quantity, not quality.

*** Yes, we could argue whether an “audience” is strictly necessary for the creation of “art”, but that is an argument probably best saved for after having consumed too many craft beers.

What's The Difference Between "craft" and "industry"?

From an email newsletter sent out by Tyranena owner and brewer Rob Larson (sorry for the excessive copying, but I hope you'll indulge me):

Earlier this year we installed a larger motor for our glycol pump to handle our increased number of tanks. That installation required running a new electrical line... which managed to direct water (from occassional melts of ice on the pump) to a low point on the top of the boiler room (where our glycol resevoir and pumps are located) which just happed to be immediately above one of our control boxes... and this 1/4" of water running down the wall just happened to hit a point where the box was mounted to the wall with a bolt... which just happened to be located immediately above the frequency control drive... which, well, doesn't really like water all that much. A couple of days (and a couple of grand... and some caulk - with the need of some more caulk, weather stripping and perhaps insulation) later, we are up and running again. It's always something. So go out and buy a few six packs... or come down to the brewery for a few pints... and help us pay for yet another equipment failure.

...

Bottled 634 cases of Hop Wh0re Imperial IPA on Tuesday which was a truly painful experience. Those highly-hopped beers, for some reason, cause several of the filler heads to occassioanlly short-fill. That and a 6 hour plus bottling day is really stinkin' long... especially when three orders go out and two come in.

So, that's life at a small brewery. Pretty typical actually; it's always something. And, in preparation for what's coming up: 634 cases is 15,216 bottles. In 6 hours. Even at it's best their line fills 2 cases per minute and would take 5 hours and 15 minutes to bottle that many cases. While that may seem like a long time, how long would it take you?

Well. Here's life at a big brewery. In fact, one of the biggest:

[Coors'] Vast facility on 2000 acres looked nearly empty. Only 100-120 on shift at any one time as brewery runs pretty much 24/7 and employs about 450 people, plus 50 seasonal. ... It brews 1,000 bbls at a time (almost 2x Golden) and turns that every 2 hours. Running flat out right now and packaging 30% more than last yr with same number of people. Mostly cans come out of Shenandoah. There are 3 can lines that do 2150 cans per minute. Bottle lines do 1600-1700 per minute. The brewery has “multiple layers of automation” and “multiple levels of human/machine interface,” said Tim, noting that designing ability to extract meaningful info in a brewery this size (i.e. thru software) “sets this brewery apart.” ... Shenandoah also has first “cross flow membrane filtration” machine in North America, a process that filters out brew down to “microscopic level.”

The Coors Shenandoah facility brews in 2 hours about 1/6 of what Tyranena brews all year. It takes the Coors facility exactly (and we can say "exactly" because I assure you it is "exactly") 8 minutes to do what took Rob (and probably Benji) 6 HOURS to accomplish.

So, you want to know why you pay more for Tyranena Beer than for Coors (and why Tyranena's Three Beaches Blonde is scores better than anything Coors can ever produce)? Because the owner of the company, the head brewer, is taking 6 hours out of his day to make sure that each bottle is packaged correctly. The owner and head brewer is out there installing and fixing equipment. He has his hands in every aspect of the production mechanism. And he takes his time doing it so that you have a beer that is exactly as he envisioned it, using quality ingredients and local labor.

Tyranena, indeed any "craft" brewery, doesn't run a faceless, mechanical process that runs 24/7 using ingredients not intended to make the beer better, but rather to make the beer cheaper. There aren't "multiple layers of automation" and there isn't "multiple levels of human/machine interface" (unless you include "machine working" as one level, and "machine not working" as another level, both requiring "human interface").

That is why it is important to support the "craft" brewers, particularly those here in Wisconsin. They have dedicated their lives, and the lives of your co-residents, to crafting the best beer they know how to make. It's the same reason why we buy vegetables and bread and salsas and flowers and meat and cheese at the Dane County Farmer's Market instead of the Super WalMart or Super Target. It's the same reason we buy Shullsburg and Organic Valley cheese (and Carr Valley and Blue Mont and all of the other fine Wisconsin cheeses) instead of Kraft singles.

So, when you go to Riley's or Steve's or Woodman's or Star Liquor next time take a 6 pack of Tyranena's Hop Wh0re Imperial IPA and set it next to a case of Coors Light and contemplate the above. Then decide which one you'll take to the cash register (keeping in mind that a 6 pack - or 4 pack - of the Hop Wh0re Imperial IPA has about the same alcohol content as that entire case of Coors Light).

"Craft" Beer

All of the "industry" blogs and news of late is how the "craft beer" segment, for the third year in a row, is growing at a double-digit pace. (see the interesting "Brew" Blog and "Brew" Magazine for a good summary of this discussion) This year happens to be up 14% over last year. And, while this segment is currently 4% of the industry, it is predicted that soon (2010?) the segment will be over 10%. Of course, the problem is: What is a craft beer? And, at least one Wisconsin brewery is right in the heat of this battle. The Brewers Association (a collection of "craft" breweries) has promulgated the following definition:

1) The brewery must turn out less than 2 million barrels per year (production limitation)
2) Be less than 25% owned or controlled by an alcohol beverage supplier that is not a craft brewer (ownership limitation)
3) Either have an all-malt flagship or have at least half of its volume in either all malt beer or in beers that use adjuncts to enhance rather than lighten the flavor (quality limitation)

This is an interesting definition. On the face of it, as a consumer, I have no real problems with this definition. In fact, I might go further. I would set the production limits lower. 2 million barrels is a lot of beer. Sierra Nevada is 600,000+ barrels. And, really, much over 1 million barrels I can't imagine that you are "craft" anymore. You don't have the production ability to experiment, your brewing schedules are extremely regimented, your marketing costs are outrageous; in other words, it is no longer a "craft" but acts, for all intents and purposes, as a small "big brewer".

I would argue that the biggest "problem" with the definition is the quality limitation. Really, how can you decipher what the intent of the brewery is in using adjuncts? It's too subjective. Using adjuncts, for example rice, for both "flavor" and "lightening" is a fairly ingrained (haha, pun!) tradition. It doesn't make sense to me to take a relatively objective definition, one that will be used to parse an industry, and read brewing motive, a subjective limitation, into it. It would make more sense to set out a list of adjuncts and acceptable brewing ratios that set out presumptions of the intent. Rather than base the definition on the subjective intent of the brewer (e.g., what is the purpose of using the adjunct in question) set out guidelines that make it clear that you have crossed the threshold from "flavor" enhancement to "cost-saving and flavor deprecation". For example, and I'm not a brewer on any much of a scale, so I don't know if these are reasonable, just a guess, but say "If your grain bill is over 10% rice" it is presumed that you are using the rice not as a flavor component but simply to reduce costs and lighten your beer (although, as mentioned earlier, one could argue that this is not an inherently troublesome motive).

But, back to the question at hand, can you figure out which Wisconsin brewery has the biggest problem with this definition? If you guessed "Jakob Leinenkugel Brewing Company" you win the prize. Leinie's seems to be regretting getting into bed with Miller in 1988 (for reasons that are not entirely clear to me, but I was just a young teenager in 1988 so it's not like I was paying attention to such things). Yes, Leinie's is run as an "independent" brewing operation; but the fact is, at the end of the day, their board and by extension their brewers, report to Miller SAB. And, if Miller doesn't like what it is seeing, it has significant ability to step in. More importantly, by being part of such a large enterprise, Leinie's has relegated itself to a mere "profit center" in the eyes of Miller. It's not a craft brewery to Miller; Miller sees it as a growth opportunity and a profitable division.

While Leinie's points to 140 years of family management, the fact is, at this point, it is not entirely family managed. It's family managed unless Miller has a problem with the management. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe they are truly "independent" of any Miller influence. But then, I would argue, what's the point for Leinie's? Why not buy yourself out? But, the fact is, Leinie's likes being in bed with Miller. They get great marketing teams, and excellent distribution; and for that price, they had to sell their soul.

So, Leinie's wants to eat their cake, too. They want to be considered a "craft" brewery, despite all the benefits of ownership and stock control by a non-craft brewery (even assuming that they fall inside the production limitation of 2 million barrels; I suspect that my revision, of 1 million barrels would rule them out).

Leinie's would prefer to define a "craft" brewery as "having a variety of interesting styles of beer." We'll ignore this; by any accounts this is not a reasonable definition. So, I would say, even if we discount the Brewers Association's definition, what makes Leinie's a "craft" brewery? The fact that they have a Berry Weiss? Because they have a Big Eddy series? (which, as a side note: the Big Eddy is a river near their Chippewa Falls plant, but they don't even brew these beers there; a second-hand account related to me tells that the brewers there didn't even know about the Big Eddy IIPA). I would argue that, even absent Miller's influence, Leinie's acts more like Sam Adams and the larger regional breweries rather than a small brewery truly concerned about the trade. At the end of the day, I suspect that Leinie's board of directors talk about "pallets" being moved and "product" getting to the shelf and "brands" being introduced rather than any overwhelming desire to participate in the world-wide beer discussion.