Richard Salthouse
Sales are flat as craft ales fizz...which drink’s better?
THE glass certainly looks half-empty for massproduced lagers as sales plunge by up to 25%.
Drinkers are deserting the traditional tipple, often associated with rowdy footie fans, for craft beers that appeal to more affluent drinkers, hipsters and women. But is there really a danger of time being called on lager? And is craft beer more than fad and hype?
Here, a devotee of each camp sets out their case.
And they also reveal there may be common ground by making an identical pick in their top fives… WE are careful using the term “craft beer” as there is no agreed definition and it carries no guarantees – anybody can stick the label on any beer.
Any definition is subjective but ours would be independently produced, flavour-focused, high-quality beer.
It can be new and innovative, traditional, or a mixture or both. But for me it must taste great and be made with integrity. So “craft beer” is also about making a quality-driven product with care and independence.
What craft beer is not is massproduced and owned by large firms intent on driving up margins by using cheaper ingredients, disconnected from customers and communities, or disinterested in supporting the rest of the industry or its employees. Or bland.
On a local scale, craft beers are sold to customers through specialist independent shops and bars. At Salthouse Bottles, our best-selling brewery, Villages, is down the road in Deptford and, like us, founded in late 2016. We have grown together and these close relationships let customers build a closer connection to the beer.
Customers are being introduced to new beer styles and flavours. And word has spread – one-time small local breweries like Camden Town (now owned by AB Inbev), Beavertown (now partially owned by Heineken), Magic
Rock (now owned by
Lion) and Northern
Monk are established regional and national brands. As more people get into craft beer, so the supermarkets and pub groups have begun to satisfy the growing demand.
Much of the craft industry has close links with the creative quarters of our major cities. Collaborations between breweries and artists are common. Craft beer bottles and cans have a different look – eye-catching, easily identified as something ”other”. In terms of an experience and a person’s identity, this “other” is a world away from the humdrum of macro.
In the past, many of us would have defaulted to macro-brewed lager partly because that’s what our friends and parents drank and partly as there was no real alternative on offer. Now, more people know more is out there. They have found, primarily, American-style pale ales and all of the flavour packed within. They expect more than macro lager is offering and to find craft beers in bars, pubs, shops and supermarkets.
Macro lagers simply aren’t good enough – corners and costs are cut in large-scale production. Craft beer is in some way a reaction against this.
Customers now have a choice between unremarkable macro lagers and flavour-driven craft beers.
I know which I prefer. 1 Affinity Breeze
2 The Marble Pint
3 Pressure Drop Pale Fire
4 Villages Rodeo
5 Lost & Grounded Keller Pils