At some point in the last two
years, whilst drinking delicious beer but choking on the hell being spoken
about it, I decided that I was not going to get involved in any form of
discussion surrounding the defining of “craft.” Craft is already a word. The Oxford
Dictionary defines Craft as… OK, I’m not going to do that little doozy here.
This is “Craft” when being applied very specifically to the brewing of beer.
I decided to break my proposed
silence on the defining of Craft Beer after drinking a can of Club Colombia Roja, 4.7%, on Friday night. Club Colombia are a (oh-you-guessed-it) Colombian
beer company I know two things about:
1) They
do another beer, a golden lager, to this that is served in golden cans that I had
once in a dirty Manchester Travelodge on New Year’s Eve, 2012.
2) They
come from Colombia.
I have a friend who teaches in
Colombia and returns every summer with such presents, just in case you were
wondering how I came by this beer. It’s certainly more appreciated than the
sugar free Fire Water drink he brings, but less so than the Viagra. I could
give you more information about this Bogota based beer but their website
chooses to make itself impossibly difficult for Google to translate and my GCSE
Spanish stopped being used once I finished banging a Spanish student.
Since I know very little about
this beer, I imagined drinking this beer as a beer writer (which I arguably am,
though sporadically.) I pictured that my friend gave me this beer with the
words “this is a beer from Colombia’s hottest CRAFT brewery” rather than the
macro brewery they are. I pictured myself opening and tasting this beer that so
few of my beer geek peers have tried and these are the results:-
Club Colombia Roja is an oxymoronic Red Lager, a style entirely new to
me. Presented in a newly crafted can, this genre defining beer was first
brewed in 2010, with imported hops and an exclusive selection of roasted malts
to create a gift for the people of Colombia. The idea that a lager can be red,
in contrast to their famous golden pilsner excites me as I open this.
I choose to drink it straight from the can initially and, without seeing
any colour, immediately put my nose to a sweet, maple scent that is certainly
heavy on the malts. There’s quite a biscuit bite here but something floral is
evident in the background. To taste, it reminds me of a less heavy Bock beer.
There is a lot of strong maltiness in there but it is penetrated by light,
bouncy hops similar to the Saaz used in their other brew. I can’t resist
pouring it into a glass to get a look at it and see the orange shade and high
carbonation. Served either way, the finish is a little insipid and lacks any
memory that will make me believe that red
lager is a style I want to revisit. Still, I feel they have created a
drinkable Bock beer and that is interesting. I am excited to try other craft
beers coming from the Southern Americas.
Why is this nonsense? It’s
nonsense because I’m close to openly ridiculing beer reviewing, something I’ve done myself
many a time. It’s nonsense because it shows how much drinking “craft” beer is
context. It’s nonsense because Club Colombia doesn't request or insinuate that it wants it's beer so thoroughly analysed – and at this point I’m assuming that all the words I can’t translate
on their website aren’t screaming WE’RE CRAFT AS FUCK.
So here is where we come back to
defining “Craft Beer.”
I should make it clear at this stage that I want no definition of it. I am also thoroughly aware that this is a discussion that was growing tired in 2013. I am not stupid, just go along with me on this one.
I should make it clear at this stage that I want no definition of it. I am also thoroughly aware that this is a discussion that was growing tired in 2013. I am not stupid, just go along with me on this one.
Brewing is a craft. It’s a very
difficult craft and one where only those very skilled at it are truly
successful. It’s just like carpentry. That’s a craft and a very difficult one
too. However, when Ingvar Kamprad started to try and develop a method of making
flat pack, do-it-yourself furniture for the Swedish market, that was changing
his craft into something very different. It was remarkable and undoubtedly
something he crafted. So when I see my one-of-a-kind, dark brown, exclusive
coffee table next to my Billy bookcase, I think nothing between the two. I
don’t think craft, I just think GENIUS, on both accounts.
Perhaps we all have this idyllic
vision of “Craft” brewers who spend their days carefully selecting the most
perfect Simcoe hops off the plants themselves, flying them over, ploughing
through the maltings themselves, checking the temperature of the beer with a
smile whilst cheekily wiping the sweat from their brow and having the time
to sit and watch the fermentation process from the comfort of an armchair
whilst a poster behind them reads “Job Well Done.” The truth is, producing
good, consistent, marketable and viable beer is a tough process that requires a
lot of frustration and a lot of machinery. It may well be hand crafted initially,
until the business side of it gives you a nudge and suddenly you need all the
help you can get. That’s the truth, right? But wasn’t it once true that Timothy Taylor was working on a small batch of beer, like some mad Scientist, to find
what he considered to be the perfect brew long before the explosion of his
company we see today? Wasn’t he crafting
beer? Weren't the people responsible for Club Colombia trying to craft something enjoyable? Isn't that word already perfectly defined?
I have the feeling that defining
craft beer is simply to make an elitist group that we can then attribute what
we consider to be good beer to. I also imagine that there are certain bloggers
who would, in their darkest recesses of honesty that they may have once in a
while, define “craft” with similar words like “American,” “hoppy,” “modern” and
“hipster.” You don’t get beer.
I need no separate definition of
what is “craft” brewing and what is not. Neither do you, whether you think you
do or not. Just as an example, I imagine these people looking for clear
definition would rate Daniel Thwaites’ regular brewery as non-craft but Crafty Dan as Craft. Use this as an example to explain your own bullshit.
In fact which guild of Craft Brewing aficionados are ruling this bourgeois group and allowing the term Craft to be applied to specific beer? I think we can all agree on certain excellent brewers who would be initiated automatically, but who monitors it then? Who decides out of the scores of new breweries creating unoriginal, average and inconsistent beers who becomes part of this guild? Who do we not hate enough to allow them to rule over the industry with their decisions on what is good and what is old?
Club Colombia Roja - of all the beers, of all the purchases and of all the tastings, this was the one that made me have to talk about that word and it's use. I would never have thought in a million years...
In fact which guild of Craft Brewing aficionados are ruling this bourgeois group and allowing the term Craft to be applied to specific beer? I think we can all agree on certain excellent brewers who would be initiated automatically, but who monitors it then? Who decides out of the scores of new breweries creating unoriginal, average and inconsistent beers who becomes part of this guild? Who do we not hate enough to allow them to rule over the industry with their decisions on what is good and what is old?
Club Colombia Roja - of all the beers, of all the purchases and of all the tastings, this was the one that made me have to talk about that word and it's use. I would never have thought in a million years...
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