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"UpsidedownA":1b6ksbbb wrote: people are just using 'craft' to mean small[/quote:1b6ksbbb]Ultimately, there is no agreed definition of "craft", and there never will be. The US is now post-craft, where the once-small alternatives to Bud-Miller-Coors are now huge companies with massive economies of scale. The Brewers' Association is still pretending that "craft" still means something, but they've attached a number to it which no-one really believes any more.

We're not there yet. We still have a yawning gulf between big and small. But here's the thing: it's not just size. That gulf also divides foreign-owned from Irish. And the variety of flavours and styles available on the small side is much wider than on the big side, Smithwick's Pale Ale and Guinness Foreign Extra notwithstanding. Conveniently, the law has drawn a line for us to separate the sides, and has drawn it at 20k hL/yr.

We're not saying that beer is better if it's from a <20k hL/yr brewery. We are saying that as Irish-owned businesses, more open to experimenting with the kinds of beers we like to drink, that the <20k hL/yr breweries are worthy of special support and encouragement. We have chosen "Irish Craft Beer" as the label for the products which come from <20k hL/yr breweries. It's catchier. You can argue the toss about what "craft" means and get nowhere; you can do so similarly with "real ale", and you'll find the CAMRA member using the phrase "real ale by CAMRA's definition". When I say Smithwick's Pale Ale isn't craft, I mean it isn't "Irish craft beer by Beoir's definition".

You can make the case that Beoir's definition is meaningless and arbitrary, but that brings up the basic question of what Beoir is for, if not for supporting Irish-owned breweries.

Well, I certainly do support small, independent, local Irish breweries. I think the variety itself is something to be valued. When I visit the UK, I get a kick out of the fact that each small place you visit seems to have a different beer to try. I hope Ireland goes that way in the coming years as the microbreweries become more popular.

A colleague just brought me in this.
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Ugh.

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He was at an evening last night hosted by Heineken at Siam Thai, there is another at Ely this evening and then Roly's later in the week.

It seems they have abandoned the 'Beer Naturally' campaign in favour of this.

"Beer Sommelier" Marc Stroobandt is doing training gigs around the country at the moment. He's just back in Dublin from Cork (where he had some positive stuff to say about 8 Degrees Porter) and I'm guessing his trip is part of this marketing thingy by Heineken. He usually does this sort of thing for A-B InBev around the world.

I was discussing him with one member of the Irish beer trade a few months ago, who drew a comparison between Mr Stroobandt's work and a certain Bill Hicks routine involving MC Hammer and Vanilla Ice.

Most apt, I thought.

He is now a business partner with F&B Partnership in the UK (<!-- w --><a class="postlink" href="www.fandbpartnership.com">www.fandbpartnership.com) who are leading the tastings.

Marc was at Taste of Dublin a few years ago for the cross-macro initiative that was 'Beer Naturally'. The new Heineken led campaign seems to be reaching out to bloggers and journos a bit more. I actually though Marc's beer tasting at Taste of Dublin was well done, in spite of my personal aversion to the beers he was matching.

Incidently, the website is making my eyes itch. It is comic-sans-tastic.

Are Heineken afraid to tell the world that they are behind the 'thisisbeer' site? Is including their licenced brands (an attempt to fool the public that this is an impartial site? (The public may think that these are non-Heineken and believe it is an unbiased site)

We all know this anyway, but here goes...

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