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.....
I work in "Big Food" and there is a conscious effort there for mega-conglomerates to cultivate certain brands to pretend to be "independent".
Certainly they're all attempting to get onto the bandwagon, by either resurrecting heritage brands or producing new ones where the adverts all have jaunty ukulele music on them. That's almost a third point to the argument though.
As far as I'm concerned, craft beer and real ale are exactly the same thing. The only difference is that for craft beer the beards are ironic.
Certainly they're all attempting to get onto the bandwagon, by either resurrecting heritage brands or producing new ones where the adverts all have jaunty ukulele music on them. That's almost a third point to the argument though.
As far as I'm concerned, craft beer and real ale are exactly the same thing. The only difference is that for craft beer the beards are ironic.
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