What’s So Special About Craft Beer?

With so many beer buying options in the marketplace, and prices varying wildly from one beer to the next, why would somebody pay a premium to drink the favorite beverage of hipsters the world over? While this may seem like a silly question to those of us who are absolute craft beer fans, to the uninitiated, it is indeed a fair and valid question. Why would someone choose to spend more money to buy beer from one company that charges a statistically significantly higher price for the same beverage? While it would be beyond simplistic to simply reply that it costs more because it’s a better product, it doesn’t really touch on nor elaborate on the extensive differences between the two products. How does one define better? It looks better? It tastes better? What exactly does better beer mean?

I like to explain the difference between craft beer and non-craft beer to those with no knowledge on the subject as analogous to the car industry. What is the difference between a Yugo and a Lexus? To most, this question would immediately conjure up images of a cheap, poorly-built, economy car vs. a well-built, high-end luxury car. This does a fairly decent job of explaining the fundamental chasm between big-box beer, and craft beer. Better beer, in the sense of craft, really means that the quality of ingredients are much higher, and thus significantly more expensive, it’s not made by a giant corporation with hundreds and hundreds of workers on the line, and there is a great deal of care and craftsmanship put into its production. In a broad sense, that is the underlying difference between big-box and craft beer, but it does goes much deeper than that.

Most likely think of big-box beer as the typical big corporations that have been brewing beer for hundreds of years, and produce remarkably similar pale, yellow lagers that are nearly indistinguishable from one brand to the next. At one point or another, most Americans (assuming they’re of legal drinking age naturally) have had a big-box beer. It’s always readily available at your local grocery store, gas station on the corner, and at your local sports stadium. Big-box beer is as American as apple pie. I will be the first to outright admit that not only have I had many big-box beers, I still buy them to this day, and willingly purchase them for my beer consumption pleasure. I am not a beer snob by any means, and I fervently believe that people should drink what they like, and not let anybody else’s opinion hold any sway over their decision. With that said, I typically buy big-box beer if I’m going to a BYOB event where others may just take my beer, and from a cost perspective, it makes sense not to bring the good stuff. My opinion is that big-box beer is cheap, but it’s still beer. Craft beer is more expensive, but it’s not just beer, it’s experiential.

Most craft brewers have very few people working for their company, certainly compared to big-box beer brands, and as such, are much lower-volume producers of beer. Indeed the current definition of craft beer in America is a brewer that produces fewer than 6 million barrels of beer per year, and less than 25% of the brewery is owned or controlled by a brewer that is not a craft brewer itself. This is a decent gauge as to what craft beer is about, but how many barrels do big-box producers brew by comparison? Most big-box brewers produce well in excess of 100 million barrels per year. It really is David against Goliath by comparison.

It’s not just overall volume of production of beer that sets craft and big-box beer apart. One of the most critical differences between craft and non-craft beer is the ingredients used in the beers’ production. Your average big-box beer is using water (of course), hops, yeast, and malt – which is the basic ingredients list of any beer – but they also add adjunct ingredients, and tend to use fewer of the ingredients that are both costly, and add to the depth of the beer, compared to the craft brewers. Non-craft brewers often use rice, corn, or other cheaper ingredients to fill their beer ingredients list. There’s nothing fundamentally wrong with this, as it produces effects on the final product that are in-line with their desired result; a clean, easy-drinking beer with very little aftertaste, and minimal weight. Craft brewers on the other hand will have water, hops, yeast, and malt as well, but for any adjunct ingredients, they are typically using more expensive additives to create a unique beer drinking experience (such as bourbon barrel-aging, or the addition of lactose and vanilla as flavoring agents). Another massive difference is the overall volume of each ingredient used. Hops are expensive, as is malt, and most styles of craft beer have quite a lot of both, whereas non-craft brewers don’t use too much of either.

In the most basic sense, craft beer is the modern day equivalent to traditionally-brewed, small-scale beer operations of the past. Non-craft beer is essentially the opposite, with completely different goals for the final product. Non-craft beer is largely similar between brands, regulated almost exclusively to the realm of lagers, and contains limited to no distinction in traits from one brand to the next. Craft beer is the polar opposite. It contains a mix of both lagers and ales, and the brewers are constantly evolving and creating new, exciting twists on any given style, and indeed, creating new ones. Non-craft beer is familiar. Craft beer is adventurous.

While I only touched on the surface of some of the key traits that set craft and non-craft beer apart, and indeed I could write pages, and pages about it, it brings us back to our original question. Why would someone choose to spend more money to buy beer from one company that charges a statistically significantly higher price for the same beverage? What exactly is so special about craft beer? Craft beer is special because it is craft beer. Craft beer is endlessly variable. There are hundreds of styles and sub-styles of craft beer from which to choose to suit any palette. Craft beer is inventive, interesting, exciting, and unabashedly delicious. Craft beer is a return to our hundreds of years old tradition of brewing beer, and in my opinion, it’s all the better for it. What’s so special about craft beer? It’s craft beer, and that says it all.