Monday, January 07, 2013

Monday Morning Second-Hand Brews News Update: 1/7/13

Time to resume your Monday morning reading. Actually, during the holiday hiatus around here in Monday Morning Brews News, I've considered that it might be better positioned to put these updates out on Saturday morning, since there's decent demand for reading on weekend mornings as well.

So this should be the last Monday morning news posting as I move them to Saturday morning. I'll leave the posting fresh at the top of The Brew Lounge through Monday morning for those of you that still like your Monday morning reading on the company's web server, and time. Everyone wins (well, except for the bandwidth at your workplace).

If you haven't been keeping up over the past several weeks, I'm going to jump back in the beer news world with a doozie that hit just before the holidays courtesy of the Brewers Association. It was their attempt to tell the world what is considered craft and what is not.

I've taken the time to compile a list of links here for those of you that would care to get into some of the details and opinions that have fueled this conversation into something louder and more opinionated than I really think it needs to be.

If you just want to drink good beer made by hard-working folks and don't care so much about labels, carry on, nothing to see here.

Charlie Papazian added his weight with this diatribe at Examiner.com

And, the Brewers Association took it from there with an article entitled "Craft versus Crafty".

It included a graphic no longer on its site, but one that BeerPulse.com took upon itself to archive.

BeerPulse.com, which has chronicled much of this, has August Schell's response.

And one from Tenth & Blake.

John Cochran from Terrapin had his say.

Stan Hieronymous jumped in as well with a fun poke at the marketing spin that goes into the "crafting" of the macro beer message.

Jack Curtin had a few bits from SABMiller's chairman.

Then, also some words from Dogfish Head's Sam Calagione about distribution and the role the big guys play (both manufacturers and distributors).

Finally, from Curtin again, comes some insights in the comments section from the BA's Gary Gillman.

Gillman also weighed in at Alan McLeod's site appearing to be defending a position that ultimately seems to demonstrate little sustainability.

CNNMoney has a spot with more details from the SABMiller chairman interview.

The Wench had some thoughtful words to add to the conversation/debate/argument.

Carolyn Smagalski had a 15-point approach for looking at craft beer.

Maureen Ogle has a little something to say about the "local" aspect of craft brewing.

Tony Magee (Lagunitas) always has plenty to say about the industry and about his brewery's role in it. The BA probably never appreciated what he said more than he said recently to a room full of industry big wigs. If you're into this whole topic and still cruising these links, this is one that you'll probably enjoy taking the 15 minutes or so to read all of.

Just a few days ago, the BA's Julia Herz took to Fox Business in an attempt to clarify things. Not sure that really happened.

I think that's probably enough for one Monday morning. Phew, now that is out of my system. For those of you tired of the conversation that seems to have no end in sight (and for some reason are still reading at this point), my apologies.

This is by no means the complete list of everything that everyone has had to say on the topic to date. But, it's what has caught my attention along the way over the past month or so.

What about you? What does "craft" mean to you? Do you care? To what degree?

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