FAKE BREWS: America rocked by 'craft beer' scandal allegations US big-box chain Walmart is being sued by an Ohio bloke who claims the retailer's line of "craft beers" is an egregious lie. Matthew Adam, of Hamilton County, is championing a class-action lawsuit alleging Walmart's line of "Trouble Brewing" beers is an act of fraud and false advertising. According to Adam's complaint [PDF], …
That is an oxymoron for starters.
Walmart and its clones (eg ASDA) are past masters at the Buy Big method of retail.
It you are a craft producer of anything you simply can't do the volume at the prices WallMart impose on you, let alone make a profit.
Unless you are really called the KRAFT Company that is.
Not all supermarket chains are like that. Some go out of their way to stock locally made things especially beer. Heck, even my local Lidi stocks beer from my local brewery.
Remember Tesco and those so called 'farm brands'. Gave the impression that these veggies came from small farms instead of being supplied by industrial level Agri-businesses.
Well Tesco have gone the wrong way.
They used to sell a number of ciders from a local producer, now they don't, and of course more imported and mass produced by non cider company ciders are on the shelf.
The local producer BTW is a biggish one - Westons!
A year ago I got all of my cider there, Westons, Healeys, Henneys ect
Now I go to Waitrose who are actually a little cheaper.
"Yet my local has York brewery beers"
There are several breweries in the San Diego area, and several micro-brews that are made by Karl Strauss ('Red Trolley' being one of my favorites). But often a micro-brew will have some of its beer brewed in a "micro-brewery" but contract out a good portion of it to a larger facility, which is what I suspect is happening with Walmart's 'craft' beer.
...for the headline. Good work subs!
Most craft brewers, if doing well enough to make a profit, end up being bought out. The question is really what happens after that - do the major breweries allow ongoing "craft brewing" stuff under that label, or do they adopt the same mass market approach that they use for their other lines? This seems to be a brand set up by the major brewer specifically to sell as a craft beer, so I'd guess it will continue in much the same line as at current.
I think the real reason he's suing is because we all have beliefs about reality that are not rational, and his have just been challenged. Rather than deal with the cognitive dissonance (I like craft beer/I like this beer/it's not a craft beer shocker!) he's taking out his anger on the company.
Obvious icon is obvious
":) We really want to do a podcast or some kind of recording of our headline writing, if only we had time. It's mainly us shouting puns at each other across the office."
PLEASE make the time to do this. That should be a most amusing listen that I think most here would enjoy.
Most craft brewers, if doing well enough to make a profit, end up being bought out.
Not sure where you are located, but I can't say this is true in my neck of the woods (the Frozen North, USA). Most of the local and regional craft breweries are both profitable and still locally owned, and the biggest ones have been that way for a decade or more. This is true, from what I gather, of many of the nationally distributed beers that aren't part of AB InBev, Carlsberg, MolsonCoors, etc stables. There are some notable breweries that still trade under a craft-like label but have been owned in whole or part for a number of years by large breweries (Goose Island and Redhook come to mind). But on the whole, craft breweries are still independent.
If you're in doubt, or just are they type of person who refuses to drink a beer produced or owned by the major brands, the Brewers Association can help out. Their 2015 volume list for craft brewers helpfully calls out the brands that won't be making the 2016 list (due in spring 2017) because they no longer meet the criteria for being a craft brewer. And I suppose it may not be perfectly up to date, but it only shows 4 exiting the list for 2016.
No, he's suing because Wal-Mart is charging more for the product based on its status as a "craft" beer, when it doesn't meet the definition. We have TONS of microbreweries in my area (Atlanta metro area), and none of the big brands are making inroads in buying them out. It is not the *good* crafters that get bought up - its the marginal ones. The good ones make money and prosper selling superior product at premium prices, and very often to a limited geographical area. The beer cartels want stuff they can ship out by the pallet load, not product that goes out by the case. Some crafters, like our local Sweet Water, don't pastuerize the beer, so it can't be shipped very far, and has a very short shelf life. The cartel boys don't want something like that.
Truth in advertising?
It's bollocks, innit.
I mean, this is the same deceptive mentality that thinks its OK to plaster "57 Varieties" on tins of baked beans, then quietly concede that this statement is essentially meaningless.
Come to think of it, what part of India does India Pale Ale come from, exactly?
Merchants stretching the truth about their wares is not exactly a new phenomenon, but at least in Ye Olden times you had the opportunity to challenge them face to face. It's only since industrialisation that an entire industry has emerged that's devoted entirely to the business of lying for profit. This is just one of many reasons why things would be better if we went back to localism. At least then everyone in the village would know to avoid the liar.
Then what's the basis for calling it "IPA" when it's not actually destined for India?
I mean, if they can't even be honest about something as basic as that, how can we expect them to honestly differentiate between industrial and artisan beer?
Have things really degenerated to the point where there is now an acceptable level of deception?
India Pale Ale was a beer that was designed/brewed specifically for the Indian market "the high hop content preserving the beer for the long journey from England to India".
In much the same way that people enjoyed other flavours from the Indian sub continent and took them back to Europe (for the serially hard of thinking, we often call these "curry"), they clearly liked India Pale Ale enough to drink it back where it came from.
You're going to blow your fucking mind when you hear about "Export" beers being sold in the countries they are brewed in, so I won't even mention 60/-, 70/- and 80/- (whereby /- means "shilling", a now discontinued brand of money).
Perhaps all beer should just be called "beer".
"India Pale Ale was a beer that was designed/brewed specifically for the Indian market "the high hop content preserving the beer for the long journey from England to India"."
It annoys me that people come out with great explanations like this but choose to remain anonymous.
It makes it difficult to know who exactly I pass this beer on to for a job well done. Oh well, I guess I'll keep it for myself.
This post has been deleted by its author
Symon, it wasn't actually called "IPA" back then, but the style of brewing was well known and understood. We call it IPA today as a tribute to brewers of the past attempting to make a palatable brew for folks in "far off climes".
Yes, alcohol is a preservative. But water + alcohol != beer ... Beer contains quite a few other odds & ends, chemical-wise ... and hops help to preserve the whole. Thankfully.
Don't believe hops are a major preservative? Brew two identical batches of beer, one with and one without hops. Keep a sample at home, under cold storage, and send another sample out on a long sea voyage approximating mid 1800s maritime conditions. The bilge of a boat at St. Ives for a year should do nicely Taste the end result. Report back.
Unfortunately, it's not entirely true- all exported beers whether they were going to India or not were brewed stronger. And as for adding hops to act as a preservative- well that was the reason why hops were added to beer in the first place- to act as a preservative.
It's a style of beer, designed to survive the long trip from Blighty to the subcontinent in the days before refrigeration. Or even steam engines. Or canals across deserts. Folks liked the flavo(u)r, so the style still exists today, with the name a nod to the origin. But you already knew this, didn't you?
Or perhaps you think The Oxford Guide To Style (Hart's Rules, et alia) only applies to those living in Oxford? Or The Chicago Manual of Style only applies to folks living in Chicago? Or The Microsoft Manual of Style only applies to ... uh ... <Emily>Never mind.</Emily>
"Then what's the basis for calling it "IPA" when it's not actually destined for India?"
Because IPA is a style of beer. It's no longer brewed for export to India, but the style is popular and the name has stuck. I very much doubt that Porter is drunk by many Covent Garden market porters these days either.
You call yourself Homer, but I rather doubt that you've written any epic Greek poetry lately. Perhaps you have more in common with the yellow Duff beer drinking variety.
India Pale Ale is a type of beer that was made to survive the journey from Blighty to India. I don't see how the destination or source really matters.
Hops prevent the beer from spoiling, so the high hop content allowed the beer to survive the journey. The side effect being that the high hop content made the beer taste in a particular way ( hops provide flavours such as citrus ).
Unfortunately hops are hard to grow and expensive. If some lovely megacorp can find a way to make hops cheaper, then good on them.
Hops are very easy to grow (they are a "pest" in our garden & "scramble" all over every other plant at the slightest opportunity)
But to grow and collect the hops commercially is not cheap as climbing plants are PITA to control - lots of setting out frameworks that they will climb in manner that they can be harvested easily enough but regular checking / tweaking needed so labour (cost) intensive (though some of the newer machines are very good but expensive for farmers to always buy latest & greatest kit) or alternatively take them to a place that has the separator kit or you go the expensive manual harvest route. After harvest the effort does not stop as need to dry them.
So they are easy to grow, but labour intensive to grow for large scale easy commercial harvest.
Think there are a couple of thousand varieties of Haricot beans and 57 was just a name to put on the tins.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FXHkFZ-nG4Y
Blazing saddles bean fart seen, LOL, just priceless!
Though if you are, into toilet humor there's the Dumb and Dumber and Van Wilder one as well.
"Think there are a couple of thousand varieties of Haricot beans and 57 was just a name to put on the tins."
The "varieties" referred to the number of their products. Even when the slogan was coined they had a few more than that - so it was just a slogan which has proved memorable.
http://www.heinz.co.uk/faqs
For the fraud of claiming what they sell is *BEER* rather than the watered down cat urine we all know it to be.<br>
And don't even get me started on "Light Beer", that's so bad it might as well be called homeopathetic.<br>
*barfing noises*
Edited because it cut off part of the subject line.
It comes down to whether the craft beer association managed to gain protection for the term AND whether anyone but them can enforce it. They don't help by having a flexible definition of how large a craft brewer can be, I'm not making this up, it's the size of the their current largest member and regularly revised upward!
There are some other qualifications, like keeping the beer refrigerated through the entire supply chain, but that one is persistently flouted everywhere packaged craft beer is on sale in a shop so probably unenforceable.
He's going to lose on any claim on a $2 premium. A common description of 'Craft Beer' in the UK is '£1 per pint/bottle/schooner more'. It's usually more than £1/pint for indentikit superhopped keg. If you have to drink high priced keg beers, drink Belgian. They've had 100+ years working out how to do it right. Just avoid the slops like Jupiler or Stella.
and where do you think that the cats piss called
Fosters
Budwiser
Coors
etc
that is served up in the UK is brewed then?
Hint, Bud in made at the old Grotneys factory by the thames.
Coors used to be produced in Alton, Hants.
I'll be popping by the Hoggs Back Brewery later for some 'Surrey Nirvana'. They have even started growing their own hops in a field over the road from the Brewery.
But in the eyes of some purists, even a place that size is too big to be called a 'craft brewery'.
Craft Beer snobs the lot of them.
I can remember when even getting a hand pulled pint was a rarity. the news that a pub in just off Tottenham court Rd was service hand pumped Bass was greeted with glee by my fellow students at PCL. This was circa 1973 though.
We are really spoilt for choice these days so enjoy it.
I think it's great that beer quality is more appreciated these days, but at the same time I am annoyed that so much of it is out of my price range. I refer to the six or seven quid a pint that I've been charged in London pubs. At least it stops me getting to the embarrassingly drunk stage - I can only afford one drink!
"Anybody else remember Grünhalle? "Bavarian" beer made by Greenall Whitley?"
I remember going to the Brewery at stupid o'clock to a system down call in the late 70's or early 80's.
While trying to diagnose the problem the night op was offering any drink I fancied, he had the keys to the management bar and hospitality was the norm. I declined until a part was ordered and a 4hr wait meant a refresher was needed. I had tried the Grünhalle before ( bog standard lager )so a couple of pints of bitter did the trick.
This post has been deleted by its author
...itself is a made up title by hipsters.
A pub 2 miles from me has been brewing it's own beer for about 50 years and not once has it used the pretentious title like "craft". It's just bloody good local brew for want of a better title.
I've tasted many so called "craft" beers that are utter bilge water, half of the shite is just piss water with some stupid flavouring like chocolate or banana to make it even less palatable than before.
Stop it!
Or worse, cloudy and tasting of yeast in a bar in [redacted] Colorado, that boasted 'unfiltered beer here'.
undrinkable shite IMHO but the locals seemed to like it.
You can produce clear unfiltered beer. The Brewer didn't seem to know what 'letting it settle' was. They were all into 'fresh beer'.
I've tried telling the small breweries over here (Ireland) to drop the use of the word "craft" and use "micro" instead. "Craft" cannot be protected/defined so it's open to use by anyone, whereas "micro" has been defined by Revenue has meaning a brewery that produces less than 30,000 hectolitres a year.
It's how the world works, it used to be the word "Deluxe" that added cost to an item, how times have changed.
I'd be careful with articles like this as you don't want to upset the shoreditch hipsters when they realise their "artisan" coffee is nescafe with a bit of froth and not from beans picked in rural Columbia by a self sustaining local tribe with a zero carbon footprint.
..except for the most part gourmet cat food is more expensive, looks of higher quality, and generally cats love it. If you're stupid enough to buy that when they'll eat cheaper food, however..
(I can get away with feeding the cats a bit of 'select' (but not gourmet) Aldi cat food, but there's mutiny if you attempt to only give them dry food)
The word 'craft' has essentially become meaningless in this context. It can be applied to anything: craft muesli; craft knitting.
As a craft programmer I offer hand-coded, artisanal if-blocks and for-loops that are only marginally more expensive than their mass-produced counterparts.
Harumph!
--- worth the extra from all the processor cycles it uses... ---
_My_ craft programming uses fewer cycles, by using them more efficiently. Not only lowers my silicon footprint, but I save all those cycles and once a month decant them into artisanal jerrycans to be distributed to deserving charities.
>The word 'craft' has essentially become meaningless in this context.
That's the problem with this case IMO. "Craft" is just a tag that was (more or less innocently) used to try and differentiate 'good' beer made by people who cared but didn't fit the requirements for Real Ale or a similarly meaningful standard.
As a neckbearded CAMRA type I was always worried about a term that was widely used but didn't convey any actual information and it has indeed proved ridiculously easy train to jump for the big brewers who hitherto gave no indication of giving a toss about quality.
Who gives a shit? Does it taste good and does it get you pissed?
I do like an IPA (although most IPA now aren't really IPAs they're not strong enough), mass produced or craft. There is lots of variety in beer which does mean that although some taste great many taste like shit.
On that note I'm going to get some Deuchers IPA tonight, it's not 'craft' but tastes good and Aldi sells it cheap.
On that note I'm going to get some Deuchers IPA tonight, it's not 'craft' but tastes good and Aldi sells it cheap.
On a related shopping note, try Aldi's Rheinbacher Pilsener in cans. This predictably gets a firm thumbs down from the beer snobs, personally I reckon it's amongst the best pilsener style beers I've tasted out of a tin. Yeah, yeah, glass is better than cans, its not a real pilsener, probably made in Burton. But for a casual snifter with a convincing clean taste well worth sticking a few tins in the fridge.
Aldi's canned Taurus cider on the other hand is amongst the worst, most awful parodies of cider ever retailed, it's worth buying only for those who want to teleport back to student days in the 1980s (the pint bottles of Orchard cider are marginally better, but nothing you'd write home about). Fortunately Aldi are doing some decent 750 ml bottles of "specially selected" cider made by Westons, that's most palatable, if a little smooth for those of us who know that real cider contains real beetles.
>On a related shopping note, try Aldi's Rheinbacher Pilsener in cans.
You should try Lidl's Perlenbache, it's very good. I have only tried the bottled version.
https://www.ratebeer.com/beer/lidl-perlenbacher-premium-pils--bier/60765/
P.S. >real cider contains real beetles.
In wine making, every bunch of grapes contain about 50 caterpillars! Tasty :)
Agree about the Lidl pilsener. First had it in Germany in the summer (not a Lidl snob, just isn't one near me), and had quite a few bottles of the stuff. Perfect for drinking ice cold on a warm summer evening by the Main. Think I still have a few of them left in caravan. Personally I preferred the "normal" pilsener to the premium one.
Would also like to see the idea of bottle/can deposits come back. The German shops charged 10c per bottle or can which you got back when you returned them the next time you shopped. Nice big machines in the Lidl entrance which took your empties and gave you a voucher to present at the till.
I love real ale, I wish the "craft beer" people would put a sock in it.
If conglomerates start mass producing high quality real ale, then that's fantastic news. A cheap, plentiful supply of lovely beer, what's not to like?
Things have vastly improved in recent years in the UK with one of either Greene King IPA or Wainwrights being available on cask in almost every pub now. They're in no way craft beers, but they bloody lovely.
More of that please.
If conglomerates start mass producing high quality real ale, then that's fantastic news. A cheap, plentiful supply of lovely beer, what's not to like?
Variety? Innovation? High standards? It is only the real ale/craft brewers (call 'em what you like) that keep the bigger brewers anywhere near the straight and narrow, and then only for some premium products.
If you're old enough, think back to the days of the 1960s and 1970s, when UK brewers were busy consolidating, and the quality of beer (and cider) was nosediving. Without much competition, and limited choice in pubs, the brewers churned out awfulness by the barrel.
I'm not that old, but I can remember 15 years ago when the choices were:
Cooking lager A
Cooking lager B
Guinness
Bods / Tetleys or if you were lucky, Worthies
With Greene King and Thwaites managing to get their mass produced cask blonde beer into pretty much every pub in the land, there hasn't been a time so good while I've been of drinking age.
If another major brewer gets into the game, we could end up with some proper competition between GK IPA, Wainwrights and the new beer.
Side note: I was drinking Cornish Trawler recently. Bloody lovely stuff. It's another blonde, but I wouldn't object to that becoming a competitor.
---- If you're old enough, think back to the days of the 1960s and 1970s, when UK brewers were busy consolidating, and the quality of beer (and cider) was nosediving. Without much competition, and limited choice in pubs, the brewers churned out awfulness by the barrel. ----
I distinctly recall when I realized (1990 or so) that "the market" was at least trying to deal with the dreadful state of both beer and bread (what is it about grain and yeast?), with the growing popularity of local breweries and bakeries. It was like seeing Adam Smith's invisible hand at work.
I recall this because I reasoned that the plummeting quality of software would surely be corrected in a similar way. Ah, well, all dreams have to die someday.
OK, here in Rochester NY Genesee is and long has been the local brewery, named for the river whose reasonably spectacular gorge it overlooks right in the middle of the city. Calling it a national brewery is a bit of a stretch, but if Sam Adams of Boston has national reach, why not Genny? The word "craft" is not generally associated with Genny, in fact another word beginning with the same three letters has been more often used in the past, especially with respect to a concoction called "Genesee Cream Ale" which served the same role here as Marmite does in the UK - you either loved it or you hated it.
To the company's credit, they have survived and produced some brews that are actually palatable and not like making love in a canoe. These days they are bizarrely owned by some Costa Rican phony baloney entity, alongside the US branch of Canadian brewmeister Labatt. However the gorge and its waterfalls are still there and you can pretend to enjoy a Genny while observing both.
@daedelus:
I'll point out that "Labatts" (yes the s is there) and Moslons are the ABw and the monsters of beer up north of you.
ask anyone about Labatt Blue and Labatt 50. No more need be said.
Now, it being Friday, 5 Paddles will have a new one out to taster. I'll be off to check that out later.
Fun Beer -> not always wonderful and perfect, but that is part of the fun.
vote up for Westons cider.... I loved the vintage brew ahh was good stuff until heart disease and doctors stopped me drinking... curse curse.
But back on subject, I've had some bloody good american beers when I've been over there....... plus been served cold fizzy stale gnats urine.
Try the Portland brewery in Oregon, they do (or did) a damn good porter... even managed to impress an old friend who was into all this 'craft beer' bollocks... mainly because she worked in a pub and knew what good beer was
He might win the suit. Or Walmart might be elected POTUS in 2020. Or neither. Or both.
My father used to make beer. It wasn't a "kit", the concept maybe hadn't been invented. But he made it from ingredients he could buy at a supermarket. For years I never tasted a beer like it. Then on a visit to the UK, on a ferry to the Continent, I ordered a Stella Artois, and Ding! that was exactly the same taste. I don't know how Stella rates among the cognoscenti, but let's look at it this way: home-made beer could have been a lot worse.
I'm rather a fan of cider, at corner shops. In the UK, it's cheap, it gets you tipsy, and, one hopes, it is not too hard on the kidneys. A random brand seemed OK (Gaynor's, Gaymer's, whatever), but I do remember buying Strongbow, and it was REVOLTING. Now, they couldn't sell it if people didn't like it. So is this one of those things like cilantro, where by genetic predisposition some people find it inedible (I'm not one of those, incidentally)? Or is some other mechanism in play?
Now, they couldn't sell it if people didn't like it
Yeah, they could.
Make a beer (or any drink) cold enough, and it tastes of nothing whatsoever. Your taste buds simply do not function.
Now look at the number of beverages that are sold as "extra cold" or somesuch; there's a reason for that...
My own taste is for beers at approximately room temperature (or just a couple of degrees below). I frequently have to buy the next round before I've started the current one :-)
Vic.
But cold beer does not beat the heat! If drunk in the quantity required to reduce your temperature it closes down the blood vessels in the stomach and the body actually increases its metabolic rate to counteract the effect. A couple of swift pints of real ale are far more effective and dont leave that nasty aftertaste.
No, because ale tends to be stronger than a thin lager. That's what I said, just alcoholic enough that it doesn't aggravate the blood vessels yet at under 40 degrees quickly cools you down, which is what you need when you're already in a sweat (if what you say is true, it would do that with cold ANYTHING). Your body wouldn't counter this at this rate since it's already heading towards heat exhaustion territory. Thing is, thin lager may be f'n close to water, but it's NOT water. Plus remember one reason people tended to drink beer versus water: beer BOILS the water; sometimes you can't trust straight water.
OTOH, a full-bodied ale tends to better dilate your blood vessels (alcohol's a vasodilator), increasing blood flow and making you feel warmer. And since it's fermented and served at room temperature, you don't have the chilling effect that counters this. Thus why the English tend to stick to them given their colder climate.
Sadly for Strongbow (not my favourite) there is a commonly repeated missnoma that it's never even seen an apple.
I have it on good authority (Herefordshire farmers) that it is indeed made in Herefordshire and just as deserving of the title"cider" as Westons. Tho' I'd rather drink the latter. Stowford Press anyone? or perhaps an Aspells from Suffolk. PP
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2025
