That 'craft' beer you're digging is probably not a craft beer after all

SFGATE - Alyssa Pereira

There's a battle being waged in the beer world.

The at times vague notion of "craft beer" — or, beer created in small batches by independent, recipe-driven breweries — is becoming a label more frequently claimed by corporate brewing companies like Anheuser-Busch and MillerCoors.

The reasoning for such a business move is ruthless. As Dogfish Head brewmaster Sam Calagione told Men's Journal last year, larger companies are aiming to cash in on the craft beer movement to keep local breweries and the products of smaller producers off bar tap lines.

"They'll buy a once-independent brewery — not naming names — and suddenly its IPA's kegs are on the street for half as much as a true indie craft beer," he said. "It really shows they're using these once-craft brands as pawns in their game to knock the true indie breweries off the board."

The truth, regardless of wherever you might see the ubiquitous "craft" tag on the bottle or can or not, is that not all labeled with the word are created equally. Actually, there are quite a few makes masquerading as indie beer products that are really complete frauds. 

The Brewers Association, an authority on just this type of issue, has defined a "craft brewer" according to three points. First, it must be small, or producing less than six million barrels of beer per year or less.

Second, less than 25 percent of a craft brewery can be owned or controlled by "alcoholic beverage industry member that is not itself a craft brewer." In other words, a big corporation that either doesn't itself brew or brews more than six million barrels a year can't have control over more than a quarter of a craft brewery's output, which is a big deal, as you'll see in the list above.

Lastly, the majority of the craft brewer's products must be "traditional," or derived from classic brewing ingredients (hops, malts, yeast, and so on). 

Now, here's the surprising part. A whole lot of the "craft" breweries that come to mind when you think of a great indie brewery are not what they appear to be. See some of the mislabeling culprits above.

Ed: An earlier version of this story included Anchor Brewing as a non-craft brewery, because it is owned by a private equity firm called The Griffin Group (a non-brewing entity). The Brewers Association has since weighed in, and added the below clarifier to the definition, which includes the exception of private equity firms from the rule. With this addendum to its definition of a "craft brewery," we have removed Anchor from this list.

"Private equity firms do not have advantages that the large brewers do in terms of priority at distribution, access to market and access to raw materials. A private equity firm would not meet the independent standard of the definition if more than half of their beverage alcohol sales were not beer."

While we can't confirm that more than half of The Griffin Group's sales were beer, the Brewers Association states that "to the best of our knowledge, Anchor Brewing meets the craft brewer definition and is considered a craft brewer."