TOPIC:

Sorry, yes I did edit my post. I got you and KeeganAles mixed up and was asking if Carlow were acting like he had described a macro in their dealings with Aldi.

"CDow":2cd2iocm wrote:

"UpsidedownA":2cd2iocm wrote: [
I'm suggesting that because of organisational structures they don't have the same control over what the company ultimately brews as smaller brewers. I'm saying that in the breweries we want to call craft breweries, the brewers are pretty much like authors, in that they have a lot of personal control over the product.[/quote:2cd2iocm]

The offerings from Irish craft / micros are pretty conservative. A stout, a pale/golden/blonde ale and a red. This true more or less across the sector. For people who have a lot of personal control over the product they're not exactly pushing the boundaries. This is. IMO, because they are establishing a market and need to get on a sound footing before they let their artistic lien run amok.

John Keeling is the head brewer at Fullers. On his watch Fullers have gone back over their old recipe books and reintroduced old classics like porter, they have collaborated with Hardknot to brew. Has any Irish based macro / micro done this?[/quote:2cd2iocm]

I accept this but I don't think it affects my definition of a craft brewery as a brewery where the brewer has the control over the product characteristic of an author. The definition says what's important is the "authority" responsibility or control that the brewer has not how they choose to exercise it. The fact that their choices are conservative and given the market conditions sort of have to be is neither here nor there. Brewers in the macros don't have that control. That's what I'm claiming anyway.

"KeeganAles":3maykac0 wrote:

"CDow":3maykac0 wrote: The micro brewer... need to brew and sell [i:3maykac0]commercially viable quantities of beer of an acceptable quality.[/i:3maykac0] [/quote:3maykac0]

That's the crux of the definition for me.

The craft brewers decides the level of quality and then figures out how to make it commercially successful.

The macros determine the margins then work backwards to tweak the beer.

It's product v profits.[/quote:3maykac0]

The problem with putting the definition in terms of quality is that macro beer is high quality beer by certain standards. They are very careful about their ingredients (they choose malt with a consistent kernel size and protein content for example). They automate the process as much as possible. They identify product parameters and carefully define a range of acceptable variation from that so they can control the process enough to produce the same beer over and over again. If you don't like the recipe, well and good, but how can you say the product is not high quality?

I think thinking of the brewer as an author maybe gets at what you're trying to say. The backwards tweaking really is a case of a brewer being forced to compromise on the beer they want to brew to satisfy the decision makers in the company, i.e. a case of where the brewer doesn't have the authorial final say.

"CDow":3nl67899 wrote:
Hard to blame them. If millions want to drink pale industrial fizz and are will to pay for the privilege why not let them.

Carlow are supplying Aldi with a range of beers. Aldi propably offered x per bottle/crate/container. Do you think that Carlow worked backwards to tweak the beer like a macro? Or did they have a quality beer in mind and then decide how they could brew it and satisfy Aldi?[/quote:3nl67899]

Carlow probably changed very little. Aldi most likely saw a specialty sector in the offies that they could get a piece of if they undercut on price. Ditto M&S, though they actually are more expensive.

A more polarizing example is Porterhouse: what do you make of a brewery that makes tasteless lager (by their own admission) to pay the bills, and then good beer along with it - are they still craft?

And Fuller's, since there's a thread about them, aren't considered Macro, they're "Regional" - big and national, but not with equal distribution everywhere.
Same goes for Yuengling in the US, who are now 4th behind A-b InBev, MillerCoors and Pabst in American sales by volume.

I know nothing about brewing but two beers at 5.2% and 4.3% are to me different beers.

As for Porterhouse and their tasteless lager (which one is it?)that is pragmatism. The sales of the tasteless lager probably pay for most of the other range of beers.

I personally don't care too much who brews my beer as long as they are legal, treat their employees well and respect their suppliers. I do not buy into the idea that macro is bad and micro is good. I drink Beamish as my beer of choice, would it improve if it were brewed by a micro?

Goose Island make some very good beer, did they "sell out"?

Fullers brew in and supply a city of some 8m people, that's pretty macro to me.

For me,the focus is not whether a beer is craft or not and if it is nice or rotten,but that we can have a good choice. The dia/heino mob would kill off choice in this country in a heartbeat. We need to keep the focus on choice and lots of it,the variety of beers will in time follow.