Crafty Bud

graphed beer - via huffpo

There has been much in the press lately of the success of craft brewing. But what does this tell us about the future of beer in general?

For the US, craft beer sales are rising while overall beer market is weak, to say the least. For here in the UK, several articles have documented the characters behind beer's recent renaissance. These include not just local articles, but high profile pieces in both the New York Times and Washington Post.

There has been mention before - as discussed in an earlier post of mine about larger UK brewers and their forays into "craft territory" -  that big companies are taking note. But lets look at Really Big Beer for a second (e.g. Not Fullers). Surely, they can't ignore what's happening to their market?

Big Brewers: Crafty or Menacing?

The ever-on-the-money Boak and Bailey posted today about an opportunity for craft brewers as the bigger breweries come marching onto their territory.

There is definitely something to it. As larger breweries latch on to some of the more popular aspects of craft beer (relentless dry-hopping, for example), craft brewers themselves could be focusing their efforts on less scalable yet equally interesting techniques. The B&B post mentions experimenting with different yeast strains or less widely known styles such as saison. Stone, Victory and Dogfish Head work together in the States to get this idea right. They collaborate on just such a beer. They made a video about it, in which they state explicitly that their recipe cannot be scaled up for the larger breweries.

But all this made me think.

wassssuuuupppp