I've been away on work for a week so am catching up on my reading, which is why I came across Jay Brooks' post in my previous post. Jay's had a fairly prolific week. I was going to note this one (which is very interesting and a pointer for where our beer market is going), and then I came across this one. Maybe it's because I'm Australian that I bristled a little, but I really can't work out why you'd get upset over the use of the word "boutique". Jay is a great beer writer and covers the US craft scene really well with great insight, but I can't help wondering whether worrying so much over the word to describe non-mainstream beer really matters or whether it starts to create a winey snobbishness in beer. I regularly describe beer as "boutique". Boutique describes the characteristic of a small, exclusive producer or business. While "craft" beer has a distinct definition in the States, I can't see any problems with using a generic adjective as a catch all phrase to describe beer that isn't generic lager. Sydney's Redoak Boutique Beer Cafe even uses the description in its name and when I once queried brewer Dave Hollyoak about it he pretty much shrugged and said he'd rather focus on the beer than the name. I'd be interested to know what readers of this blog think.
Yes, "craft" is a specific and important term in the States and I think Australia should have a similar definition developed as the comparatively nascent domestic beer market develops. Properly used it helps differentiate between a massive brewery and a small one...but in Australia is Coopers still a craft brewery? Little Creatures makes great beer but is substantially owned by Kirin now (formerly Lion Nathan)...are they "craft" or not? In getting worked up and damning a TV talking head for using a generic descriptor for beer with flavour seems to me pretty stupid. Shouldn't we be celebrating that beer is starting to get mainstream coverage and hope that it leads to people trying better beer and maybe even learning the lingo later? To get all snarly about the use of a word like "boutique" just creates the sort of linguistic divisions that give wine a bad name and act as a barrier to people coming to the party. It makes beer a private club that leaves people feeling stupid and excluded if they refer to it the wrong way...when we should be welcoming them with open arms and saying thanks for talking about it. Even more, it is incredibly hard to get mainstream media to cover beer at all, is slamming them and calling them "a nutter" when they put together a pretty good story on beer going to (a) encourage them try and find out what the universally agreed definition of small brewed beer is (there isn't one) or (b) discourage her from reporting on beer again?
Let me know what you think....