I’m going to flat out say that virtually no craft beer is pasteurized!
It entails extra equipment, money and time and between you me and the tree - most craft breweries just can’t afford any of those.
Not to mention the fact that since most craftbrewers have approached the field from the idea of making a more natural and “crafty” product, they take it as a point of pride to not pasteurize. Hell, think of the number of them who proudly state that they don’t filter their beer.
But the person I talked with said “virtually all” bottled beer is pasteurized… So I guess it’s somewhere in between
I don’t know how big the equipment is, but the craft breweries I’ve seen have simple bottling lines, and I didn’t see any of the pasteurization equipment.
Just multiply by the hype quotient, which for craft beer starts at about $.25/% and goes well into the double digits. For example, Dark Lord has a hype quotient of about 10 once you factor in time spent in line, and yet Surly Darkness is only about 2.
LOL! The hype quotient is indeed a big factor in “craft” beer. And the industry is certainly milking it by the looks of the pricing I see these days.
Problem is lately, better than half the time the products don’t live up to the hype (or the price).
Some craft breweries do pasturize their bottled products. An example is Captal Brewery of Middleton, Wisconsin, which bottles its product at the Stevens Point Brewery in Stevens Point Wisconsin. All of their bottled product, including Autumnal Fire and Blonde Dopplebock are pasturized in bottles at the Stevens Point plant (and they pale next to the draft product from Capital).