The brewer came first, and the brewer is responsible for creating beer.
It’s reasonable to say that the first brewer brewed in his home.
Therefore homebrew is the earliest and most authentic form of “craft beer”.
Also agree. It takes a lot of skill to brew the same exact beer OVER AND OVER regardless of it being light lager or whatever other color or hopped up beer it is. I like Sean’s suggestion of Artisanal beer better, or why couldn’t we stick with Microbrewed beer? Craft beer sounds too pretentious, like it’s trying too hard to say it’s absolutely superior, when in fact there is just as much bad microbrewed beer as there is good.
Semantics can become troublesome – According to CP, I guess when I brew most of my beers, I am a craft brewer, but when I make a premium lager, I no longer am a craft brewer, because of the style?
My CAP uses 6-row and corn, just like the ones Jeff Renner wrote about. Some Cluster to bitter and Saaz to finish. Most of those ingredients are looked down upon by some. It is tasty on a warm summer day, and one would not confuse it with a macro, even though it is similar.
I thought “craft beer” was a term coined to make fancy macro brewers’ (ike Sierra Nevada, New Belgium, Sam Adams) beer sound fancier. No sane person would argue New Belgium is a microbrewery, yet they make beer that’s pretty different than the usual BMC stuff. I’m not really sure what to call it, because artisan to me sounds like it’s “made by an artisan” as opposed to “in a factory.” Anything 10bbl+ is much more like a factory than an artisan’s workshop, IMO.
Here in Italy, craft beer is called “birra artiginale”
Of course homebrewers are craft brewers. Until some homebrewer has over 50% of the world’s beer distribution, I’d say they fit right in with the rest of professional craft brewers.
Sure, artisanal, like cheese, but that probably would ring a little snooty to a lot of beer drinkers.
I think some beer is “crafted” in the same way that Corn Flakes are “crafted”, while other beer is crafted with the love and care that is similar to the way an artisanal loaf of bread is “crafted”. It’s nice to have some way to make the distinction.
I think the term “craft beer” ought to apply only to small scale (compared to AB etc), commercially made beer. “Homebrew” is term for the homemade version.