What is craft beer?

The term craft beer is quite well-known nowadays. Where people used to refer to beer as pilsner and specialty beer if you drank a different beer style, there is now much more variety. The term specialty beer is too general to encompass IPA, Weizen, NEIPA, Blond, Bock, and all other beer styles. Craft beer is just as general and says nothing about the taste of the beer – but what is it then?

To get to the origin of craft beer, we actually have to go back to the time before the industrial revolution. A city like Utrecht had as many as 60 breweries in the Middle Ages. All of them small and medium-sized businesses. So, the beer you drank was often local, or its origin was always quickly traceable. If you now think that craft beer is regional beer, you are mistaken. Regional beer is simply beer brewed nearby.

The industrial revolution and beer

Beer brewing was industrialized at a rapid pace. As a result, small producers disappeared because they did not have access to the latest techniques, for example, to produce lagers. This ultimately led to the emergence of megalomaniac companies such as ABInbev, Heineken, and many other globally operating giants.

Monotonous and without variation

Along with the growth of globally operating companies, the taste of beer has become less intense, and the variety on the beer shelf has disappeared. With the Dutch low point in 1980, when there were only 21 breweries active in our small country. Nowadays, there are many more, mainly due to craft beer and independent breweries.

Independent breweries

From 1980, the number of breweries grew, and from 2012/2013, a huge revolution truly set in with a sharply increased growth in the number of breweries. We ourselves started in 2013 after Sander and Ronald had been stirring in pots in the kitchen since 2011. Most of these new breweries are independent breweries – and these are the craft breweries we are talking about. Breweries without financially strong investors, brewers who bring variety to the beer market. The growth and consolidation of IPA as a beer style comes with this new group of brewers, as do many innovations such as Barrel Aged beers and Non-Alcoholics.

Craft beer is brewed by independent breweries and can be any beer style. From pilsner to saison, from sour to weizen, as long as it is brewed by a brewery without ties to globally operating big capital. 

Craft washing

As always in the capitalist system, large companies keep a very close eye on the small ones, and the growth has not gone unnoticed. Breweries such as De Molen, Het Uiltje, Texels, and Oedipus are no longer independent Dutch breweries but are part of global players. That is not a problem, but as a consumer, it can be confusing. You are suddenly no longer supporting the local brewer with their local team, but the shareholders of a global powerhouse.