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Talking about a revolution

Take a look at today’s craft brewing industry and it’s hard to believe that as recently as the turn of the millennium the perception of beer brewing was of scruffy, hippy types in sandals, geekily discussing secondary fermentations.

Back then it was all about real ale in the United Kingdom, and about proper beer in America. To outsiders the battle for beer was just that – a campaign against mass produced and homogenous beer, and especially lager. Unless it was a lager produced in Continental Europe. Or in a garage in Portland, Oregon.

The problem was that some of the alternatives weren’t particularly appealing. Flat, scuzzy, cloudy concoctions might have been considered real by the diehards, but for many of the rest of us, they were just really bad.

Around that time, though, something changed. And when it did, it changed fast.

As Editor of Beers of the World, I remember sitting one Saturday evening sipping a new American craft beer – something from Rogue if I remember correctly – waiting to be interviewed on an American radio programme about beer. I could hear the two hosts on the show chatting about some new ale or other, and I recall being amazed by their passion and enthusiasm, and their knowledge of their subject. It was unnerving.

And that sort of passion flowed through the United States from Alaska to the Alamo as craft brewing took hold, as scores of enthusiasts turned their home brewing hobby into a business. Some brewers set out modestly and chose to stay that way.

Some started small but evolved into substantial businesses, moving to ever more sizeable premises and creating new jobs as they went. Some had grandiose aspirations from the outset, and are now living their dream.

Perhaps inevitably the United Kingdom would follow. All the pieces were in place due to years of work by the Campaign for Real Ale and organisations such as the Small Independent Brewers’ Association (SIBA), which has now morphed into the Society of Independent Brewers, and the Independent Family Brewers of Britain (IFBB). Regional brewers were becoming more adventurous as they sought to create a niche for their beers among the plethora of brands marketed by big producers. Outstanding beer writers and a new generation of bloggers were writing about craft beer to a curious and broadminded beer community. Home brewing has long been popular in Britain, and some home brewers had become very good at it. Beer tourism to Belgium, The Netherlands and France had grown in popularity, and regional and small brewers were thriving due to favourable tax breaks.

When the phenomenon swept through Britain, the new producers carried with them many traditional European breweries with histories going back centuries, paying tribute to them, trying to reproduce their specific styles of beer, and resurrecting old redundant recipes.

Today’s craft brewers come in all shapes and sizes. Of course the usual suspects are in the mix, and there are countless stories of beer-loving friends turning long-held dreams of making exciting beers into reality. But there are less obvious candidates, too: solicitors and accountants who have turned their backs on the hustle and bustle of city life to embrace something altogether more sedate and satisfying; farmers who have turned a spare outbuilding into a brewery; restaurateurs and pub licensees keen to offer customers a home produced beer.

But while the supply of new beers was dramatic and impressive, what turned microbrewing into a phenomenon was the seemingly endless supply of keen consumers who were ready and willing to explore tastes and styles. Well travelled and familiar with exotic food and drink abroad, a new generation of drinkers was turning its back on homogenous and globalised products and was starting to seek out drinks with heritage, history and provenance.

There are other factors, too. The new drinkers are a health-conscious bunch, and prefer quality over quantity. But conversely, that also means that they’re more open to sipping one or two pints of stronger alcohol, or drinking smaller 33cl or 25cl measures from a bottle of beer with a high alcohol content, rather than traditional session pints from the tap. Many of them are keen to seek out something new and exciting rather than drink what their parents drank. Many understand that there are craft beer styles that have little in common with traditional bitter or lager, and they not only don’t care, they positively welcome the challenge such beers offer them. Many are eager to learn about them and explore further.

All of this was fuelled by the arrival of the Internet. It allowed small businesses to compete with large ones without the need for big advertising budgets, and to find a ready audience for their creative ideas. Enthusiasts are able to use social media and online blogs to draw attention to their discoveries. The Internet has become an educational tool, helping beer lovers understand more about even the most obscure porters, pale ales or sour beers.

Microbrewing has changed the face of our pubs and bars. The colourful chalkboard, with its zany names, varying ABVs, and brief taste descriptors, has become an increasingly visible road map for scores of patrons who see every trip into a licensed premises as a personal adventure and a journey of discovery. Leading supermarkets have shelves stacked with attractive bottles and, increasingly, cans. Upmarket supermarket chain Waitrose now sells single bottles of craft lagers that cost more than a bottle of wine.

They say what goes up must come down, and there are plenty of people who have predicted that the craft industry can’t defy gravity indefinitely, and that an overcrowded marketplace will inevitably mean that some brewers will crash and burn.

By 2018 there were signs that in America at least, the number of new brewers was peaking, and some are starting to fall away. Inevitably, beer drinkers will separate the wheat from the chaff, and poorer products will not survive. But our palates have been changed forever; we have higher expectations of what beer can and should be, and the days of lifetime loyalty to one or two brands are long gone. If you have any doubts that craft brewing is a fad that will fade and die, then take a long, hard look at what even the most tame outlets are now offering, and at the way the global giants are trying to jump on the microbrewing bandwagon.

Never has it been a more exciting time for beer drinkers.

Cheers – don’t mind if I do.