Craft beer/Real Ale - Deadly rivals or brothers in arms?
Discussion
I'm sitting in my local having just had a really nice pint of ale (IPA by an American brewer called Harpoon) followed by a bottle of Crystal Rye IPA from Southwold's own Adnams brewery.
There seems to be quite a degree of animosity developing between Real Ale and Craft (I'm thinking specifcally of an article I read on the Brewdog website and comments on here - hipster beards vs twiggy beards etc), but is this a necessary or desireable conflict?
My own view is that there is good and bad on both sides. I've sampled quite a few sickly, artificial tasting 'Craft' beers in the last year or so, but equally I've come across many derivative, poorly kept (a different issue maybe), uninspiring Real Ales also.
To become the devils advocate for a moment: Is the Craft beer 'revolution' merely a tool of the marketeers who desire a return to easily kept, adulterated, mass produced 'dead' beers? Is the Real Ale movement a reactionary, market-unfriendly product that claims to support a superior prodcuct that all too ften falls short?
Your thoughts please gents.....
There seems to be quite a degree of animosity developing between Real Ale and Craft (I'm thinking specifcally of an article I read on the Brewdog website and comments on here - hipster beards vs twiggy beards etc), but is this a necessary or desireable conflict?
My own view is that there is good and bad on both sides. I've sampled quite a few sickly, artificial tasting 'Craft' beers in the last year or so, but equally I've come across many derivative, poorly kept (a different issue maybe), uninspiring Real Ales also.
To become the devils advocate for a moment: Is the Craft beer 'revolution' merely a tool of the marketeers who desire a return to easily kept, adulterated, mass produced 'dead' beers? Is the Real Ale movement a reactionary, market-unfriendly product that claims to support a superior prodcuct that all too ften falls short?
Your thoughts please gents.....
Just to clarify - the rye ipa was presented as a 'Craft' beer.
Interesting that you equate volume with quality Paddy (that tends to be my feeling also), is this necessarily the case though I wonder? Does increased market share always equal increased greed and thus decreased quality? Just observation is that the Brewdog beers have taken a dip in quality recently (imho of course)
Interesting that you equate volume with quality Paddy (that tends to be my feeling also), is this necessarily the case though I wonder? Does increased market share always equal increased greed and thus decreased quality? Just observation is that the Brewdog beers have taken a dip in quality recently (imho of course)
I should probably declare my previous allegiances here - about ten years ago I worked for a small scale real ale microbrewery at the weekends and got fully indoctrinated into the real ale fold.
My initial reaction to the slickly marketed craft beer movement was 'Infidels! It isn't respiring! Now - I'm less automatically suspicious/derisive of a craft beer (in fact I like quite a number of them and would/do choose them over a poor real ale).
However - I would maintain that a good real ale, well cellared, has the edge on any craft beer I've come across. Is that just personal taste, or justifed beardism?
My initial reaction to the slickly marketed craft beer movement was 'Infidels! It isn't respiring! Now - I'm less automatically suspicious/derisive of a craft beer (in fact I like quite a number of them and would/do choose them over a poor real ale).
However - I would maintain that a good real ale, well cellared, has the edge on any craft beer I've come across. Is that just personal taste, or justifed beardism?
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