Craft beer

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Craft beer on the shelf in the Freistil brewery in Tübingen

As craft beer (also Craft Beer or Craft Beer ) are generally beers understood the craft by an independent brewery brewed. The craft beer movement originated in the United States . In addition to this definition, the term in Europe also refers to creative beers and brewers that, within or outside of the Purity Law, pick up on old or foreign beer styles and reinterpret them.

Background and origin of the term

Of the thousands of breweries in the United States, only large companies like Miller or Anheuser-Busch survived the prohibition , which were able to switch to non-alcoholic beverages between 1920 and 1933 (see also Near beer ). From then on, these dominated the American market, which led to the often maligned watery and tasteless standard beers.

Starting with hobby brewers , an aversion to these beers and a trend towards own brewing developed there from the 1970s, for which the terms craft brewing and craft beer became common. This choice of words goes back to the English to craft (German: “handcrafted work”). It was breweries that were independent of large brewery groups and who deliberately competed and differentiated their products from conventional breweries as being of particularly high quality and brewed beers based on traditional European styles.

The number of breweries and beer brands in the US increased massively. The US Brewers Association differentiates between brewpubs, microbreweries and regional craft breweries . In 2015 there were more than 4,000 breweries in the United States in these categories.

The U.S. Craft Beer Association Brewers Association defines craft brewer as follows:

Small
“Small” means a maximum of 6 million barrels annual output, which corresponds to 7.0 million hectoliters . Even the largest large German brewery ( Krombacher , 5.7 million hectoliters in 2017) is considered “small” according to this definition.
Independent
For a brewery to be considered independent, a maximum of 25 percent of a brewery may belong to a member of the beverage industry who is not a craft brewer itself .
Traditional
Most of the volume of alcohol must be produced as beers with a taste resulting from traditional or innovative brewing ingredients and their fermentation in order for the brewery to be considered "traditional".

According to this definition, a little more than one in ten beers drafted in the United States in 2015 was craft beer. This corresponds to 14 percent of total beer sales in the USA.

A similar market is also developing in Great Britain as a result of the campaign for traditional ales . The number of breweries in Great Britain exceeded the number of breweries in Germany for the first time in 2015 . The global market share of craft beers is around 2.5% of the 2,000,000,000 HL brewed annually, but consumes 20% of the global hop harvest.

For craft and microbreweries, there are brewery equipment manufacturers in the US, UK, Germany and Italy who produce simple and inexpensive equipment. These systems are specially adapted to the smaller quantities and smaller batch sizes.

Craft beer in Germany

Small craft beer shop in Cologne 2019 - 360 ° panorama Show
as spherical panorama
Craft beer stand at the Berlin International Beer Festival , 2013

There is no clear and precise definition of craft beer in Germany because the term cannot be protected as a word mark. A brewery does not become a craft beer supplier through a single beer, but through the entire philosophy of the brewery. At the beginning of 2017, the Verband Deutscher Kreativbrauer e.V. was founded from the German craft scene . V.

Traditionally, independent breweries, such as inn breweries , house breweries or breweries , were already widespread in Germany. In Germany , a craft trend is emerging in some regions. With an annual production of less than 200,000 hectoliters, breweries in Germany benefit from a lower beer tax , which applies to around 95% of breweries in Germany.

In 2010, Fritz Wülfing was the first in Germany to introduce the term craft beer with his "Fritz-ales". However, he had to change the name of his beer brand to AleMania, as the Nordmann Group ( Ratsherrn , Störtebeker , Fritz-Getränke-Vertrieb) has secured the name "Fritz" for all drinks. This beverage company tried unsuccessfully to have the trademark rights for the terms "craft" and "craft beer" protected.

The craft beer market was also recognized by large breweries . This is how the Bitburger brewery group created the Craft-Werk brand . The Radeberger Group founded as a branch Die Internationale Brau-Manufacturen GmbH , which offers 14 own creations and 25 products from partners. The design of beers with individual taste and advertising for them are becoming increasingly important. Competitions are organized on a national and international level. In the summer of 2018 there were “loads of craft beer festivals” in Germany, for example in Bremen, Berlin, Munich, Cologne, Düsseldorf and Karlsruhe. The spread in regional areas continues.

The master brewer and beer sommelier Oliver Wesseloh accepts that the term “craft beer” has meanwhile become established in Germany, but believes that it is not suitable. The situation in Germany has always been different from that in the United States. The (new) term in Europe mainly refers to creative beer and creative brewers . The latter are rediscovering and reinterpreting old beer styles such as Grutbier , Gose or Berliner Weisse . The same applies to other styles such as India Pale Ale , Belgian Wit or Stout . New beers are developed on the basis of numerous different types of hops and malt. Aromatic hops and creative techniques such as hopping (dry hopping) or storage in whiskey, wine or rum barrels are used in particular.

literature

  • Oliver Wesseloh, Julia Wesseloh: Living beer: The new brewing culture. Rowohlt , 2015, ISBN 978-3-499629-46-4
  • Jens Dreisbach: Craft beer: history, production, breweries. Komet Verlag 2016, ISBN 978-3-869417-16-5
  • Martin Droschke, Norbert Krines: 111 German craft beers that you have to drink. Emons Verlag 2018, ISBN 978-3-740803-38-4
  • Fritz Wülfing, Heike Wülfing: Brewing craft beer yourself - home brewing revolution. edition Lempertz: Bonn 2014, ISBN 978-3-943883-15-2 .
  • The craft beer book. The new brewing culture. Beer as a new expression of authenticity and lifestyle. Edited by Sylvia Kopp, Sven Ehmann, Robert Klanten; Die Gestalten Verlag: Berlin 2014, ISBN 978-3-89955-534-9 .
  • Steve Hindy: The Craft Beer Revolution. How a Band of Microbrewers Is Transforming the World's Favorite Drink . Palgrave Macmillan: Basingstoke (Hampshire, England) 2010, ISBN 978-1-137-27876-0 (English).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Benedikt Ernst: Craft Beer . In: essen-und-trinken.de , accessed on April 18, 2017.
  2. ↑ Beer as art: that's what craft beer is all about . In: Focus Online , April 17, 2015, accessed April 18, 2017.
  3. ↑ Craft Beer - Revolution in beer taste . In: W wie Wissen , ARD, September 17, 2016, accessed on April 18, 2017.
  4. ↑ Oliver Wesseloh, Julia Wesseloh: Live beer: The new brewing culture. Rowohlt, 2015, p. 67.
  5. ↑ Oliver Wesseloh, Julia Wesseloh: Live beer: The new brewing culture. Rowohlt, 2015, p. 48.
  6. ↑ Germans react to Miller Beer on YouTube , accessed on February 8, 2019
  7. ↑ Why Does American Beer Taste Like Water? on YouTube , accessed February 8, 2019
  8. ↑ Oliver Wesseloh, Julia Wesseloh: Live beer: The new brewing culture. Rowohlt 2015, page 48
  9. ↑ Garrett Oliver: The Oxford Companion to Beer. Oxford University Press, New York 2011, ISBN 978-0-19-536713-3 , pp. 270-271: Entry on Craft brewing (English).
  10. ^ Number of Breweries. Brewers Association data and figures for US breweries , accessed May 23, 2014.
  11. ↑ Craft Brewer Definition . Brewers Association, accessed August 24, 2018.
  12. ↑ Domestic sales of the leading German beer brands in 2017 | Statistics. Retrieved May 29, 2019 .
  13. ↑ a b Nina-Anika Klotz: Craft Beer: Born from foam . In: Zeit Online , October 28, 2015, accessed April 18, 2017.
  14. ↑ In 2015 there were 1424 breweries in the United Kingdom [1] , in Germany according to the Federal Statistical Office 1388.
  15. ↑ Carsten Dierig: Everything in the Hallertau revolves around hop growing. In: welt.de . May 18, 2018, accessed October 7, 2018 .
  16. ↑ a b Competition in the beer scene invigorates taste. In: VDI nachrichten , November 6, 2015, No. 45, p. 12 f.
  17. ↑ http://mixology.eu/news/verband-deutsche-kreativbrauer-ev-verein/
  18. ↑ https://deutschekreativbrauer.de/
  19. ↑ Micro-breweries compete with the “big ones” . NDR, March 16, 2015.
  20. ↑ Amount of the beer tax . ( Memento of the original from January 19, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Website of the General Customs Directorate , accessed on April 15, 2017: “Smaller breweries, whose total annual production is less than 200,000 hectoliters, can benefit from reduced beer tax rates. The prerequisite for this, however, is that they are legally and economically independent from other breweries. The protection of smaller breweries created by this discount serves as a structure-promoting element. " @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.zoll.de
  21. ↑ Federal Statistical Office , quoted from: Statistics Braustätten in Deutschland 2015. ( Memento of the original from July 5, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. German Brewers Association . @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.brauer-bund.de
  22. ^ Stefan Kreuzberger: Craft Beer from Bonn. The German hop rebel . In: Slow Food Magazin 1/2017, p. 33ff
  23. ↑ 26 beers honored with platinum, Brauhaus Riegele and Brauerei Hertog Jan are the craft brewers of the year 2018
  24. ↑ The best craft beer festivals in summer 2018
  25. ↑ Oliver Wesseloh, Julia Wesseloh: Live beer: The new brewing culture. Rowohlt 2015, page 67
  26. ↑ Oliver Wesseloh, Julia Wesseloh: Live beer: The new brewing culture. Rowohlt , 2015, page 69