The origins of craft beer clearly lie in the USA. With only three major breweries left in the 1970s due to Great Prohibition, every beer in the United States was similar to each other. There was no variety of beer, so private individuals decided to brew their own beer at home as a hobby. Craft beer was born in 1978 when then-President Jimmy Carter allowed home and hobby brewers to sell their beer. At the turn of the millennium, many people's consciousness changed. They wanted to know what they were eating. Does the baker still bake his bread by hand and in a stone oven or does he get it delivered ready-made from the headquarters and just have to finish it baking in a bread maker? This rethink gave the craft beer scene an incredible boost and gained more and more reputation. However, interest in craft beer only began to emerge in Germany ten years later. Since then, the craft beer scene has continued to grow strongly and more and more Germans know what to do with the term craft beer.
The term craft beer is a generic term for a variety of beers. From IPA to Porter Stout to Belgian Wit - there's nothing that doesn't exist. In general, craft beer stands for a beer produced by hand, which stands in contrast to mass-produced beers in large breweries. However, it is very difficult to categorize craft beer as the guidelines for the individual categories differ from country to country, if they exist at all. In the United States of America, the Brewers Association has set strict guidelines for when a beer can be called craft beer. They set their craft beer standards with their motto “Small, independent, traditional”:
A brewery that wants to sell its beer as craft beer is allowed to produce a maximum of six million barrels of beer per year, which is approximately ten million hectoliters. Only then can it officially call itself a craft brewery.
A craft brewery must own at least 75% of the company shares. As soon as a third-party company from the alcohol industry owns more than 25% of the shares, the brewery is no longer allowed to call itself a craft brewery and is also not allowed to sell its beer as craft beer.
The range of a craft brewery must largely be produced traditionally. The raw materials are particularly important here. Water, hops, yeast and malt are said to be the only ingredients in the beer.
However, these standards do not make sense for Germany. The mere aspect of annual beer output is completely useless in Germany's craft beer scene, because even the large German breweries Augustiner (1.5 million hectoliters / year) and Oettinger (5.4 million hectoliters / year) would then be considered craft Breweries count. Likewise, all beers in Germany must be brewed according to the Purity Law, which means that the traditional perspective for craft beer in Germany, as well as that of annual output, would not be meaningful. If you didn't make a difference between the American and German perspectives on craft beer, almost every brewery in Germany would be a craft brewery. According to the American classification, only the aspect of independence would deprive some large breweries of the title of craft brewery. Beck's, Astra, Kulmbacher and Paulaner, for example, belong to larger corporations such as Heineken, Carlsberg or AB InBev. That's why it's extremely difficult in Germany to find a classification as to when a beer is a craft beer.
