Check With This App If It Is Really “craft Beer”
For beer to be classified as “craft beer,” the Brewers’ Association requires the brewery to be small, independent, and traditional . This means that while some breweries owned by companies such as Anheuser-Busch may refer to themselves as “craft”, this is not the case. If you’re not paying close attention, it can be difficult to tell the “big” beer from the little guys when you’re at the grocery store. Now there is an app for that.
For a brewery to be “small,” it must produce 6 million barrels of beer or less (one barrel equals 31 gallons). “Independent” means that less than 25% of the brewery is owned or controlled by an alcoholic beverage manufacturer who is not a craft brewer, and “traditional” means that beer is produced using traditional brewing ingredients and fermentation (malt drinks such as Smirnoff Ice don check).
While you can probably tell that things like Bud Light, Corona, and Heineken are not craft, neither is the beer produced by 10 Barrel, Goose Island, Breckenridge, Elysian, or Golden Road. All of these breweries are owned by Anheuser-Busch and are part of its High End portfolio . And there are dozens more that are owned by larger breweries or holding companies.
To help, the Craft Brewers Association began adding this label to in-store craft beer to help it stand out from the larger brands, but the logo isn’t on everything.
If you’re looking to buy craft and don’t know what you’re looking at, the Craft Check app can help you. With it, you simply enter the name of the brewery or scan the packaging, and then the app will tell you if what you are looking at is craft or not. If not, he will tell you who it belongs to.
This can be great if you stumble upon something new in a bar or shop and want to make sure you know where your dollars are going before you buy.