In Defence Of Beer Snobbery: Craft Beer Is Changing Australia For The Better

Nic Sheehan revisits the state of craft beer in Australia, after fresh criticism emerged which labels craft beer as expensive, bad tasting and “un-Australian”.

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The “Craft Beer Revolution”. Who doesn’t love a good revolution? Storm the town square, bust open the pub gate with a rusty corkscrew and hoist the Craft Beer flag, then — with a foamy double IPA in hand — merrily dance with the other revolutionaries. “Job well done, chaps. Next target, the Jagerbomb scourge!” your fellow comrades cheer as they tie the publican to a mule bound for Eastern Europe.

If only it were that exciting. In the modern habit for hyperbole words like “revolution” tend to get thrown around casually. Craft beer is no revolution, but ‘The Craft Beer Evolution’ doesn’t really have the same zing.

This piece by Eleanor Robertson published on The Guardian website airs out some smelly laundry from the anti-craft beer mob rallying against this “revolution,” a camp I previously thought was solely inhabited by indifferent old men grumbling about bus timetabling. The list of complaints mostly orbited points of price and taste, which supposedly justified the proclamation that craft beer is un-Australian.

The record should be set straight: not only is craft beer here, it’s set to take up more and more of the fridge space. I talked with two of Australia’s pioneering craft beer brewers and businessmen — Patrick Ale of Quiet Deeds (Port Melbourne, Victoria) and Richard Adamson of Young Henry’s (Newtown, NSW) — to find out the current state of craft beer.

But first, some claims need to be debunked.

Australians Love Crap Beer, But Craft Beer Is Australian

Announcing that something is ‘un-Australian’ should by now make most of us cringe, close the browser window and wash out our eyes with bleach. Excluding something from an arbitrary, if not entirely fabricated notion of national identity is a cheap strawman usually found as part of a racist arsenal deployed by bogans and militantly xenophobic Prime Ministers.

In the context of beer, this claim is perplexing and downright false. Independent craft brewers are owned and operated by Australian entrepreneurs, whilst big “Australian” brands are an item within a global portfolio of beverages owned by either Japanese (Kirin, parent company of Lion) or South African corporations (SABMiller, parent of Carlton United Breweries).

If you’re solely looking for cheap beer at the bottle-o, then picking up a case of discount German or Asian larger would be the only guarantee of getting $10 or $15 back from a fifty. If cheap is the Australian way, then the modern Australian way is foreign owned.

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Big Beer vs. ACCC

It should be mentioned that cheap beer is only cheap at the pub because it usually receives a corporate subsidy, by way of a tap or line contract. Publicans receive discounts if they stock exclusive product from one, and only one, of the beer titans.

This is how bars can continue to sling a pot of draught for three bucks to old codgers at the bowlo. The real cost is much greater if you add the hidden cost of feeding the corporate duopoly and their alleged uncompetitive practices. This practice is pending official investigation, which will no doubt result in a hard tickling by the long feather of the ACCC.

Many are welcoming the investigation, including Patrick Ale at Quiet Deeds. “It’s frustrating for small producers to obtain taps for their beers when the major brewers are paying large amounts of money to lock out everyone but themselves. We welcome any changes to this.”

Not everyone is so optimistic, however. I asked Richard Adamson of Young Henry’s about the ACCC investigation, but his answer was surprising. “I’m not excited by it to be blunt,” he said, explaining that any legislative changes for the big brewers would inevitably have an impact on smaller brewers too.

This perspective makes sense, when considering the fragile legislative environment in which the alcohol industry exists. When it comes to making and serving alcohol, new laws rarely make business easier.

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The Evolution Of Australian Hospitality

Regardless, craft beer is the only sector experiencing growth within a generally stagnant beer market. To be critical of craft beer is to be clueless of the direction of Australian hospitality, which is driven by a change in consumer tastes.

Adamson has observed this change first hand in Newtown: “People are asking for [craft beer]. The larger pubs may not have done this in the past, but they have to do it now. Otherwise their drinkers are going to go somewhere else.”

Patrick Ale agrees on this point. “Consumers are drinking less but better quality, and hence more premium offers are in growth. Craft beer fits this trend perfectly.”

Long gone are the days when a man pulled up his bar stool with his mates from the Painters and Dockers Union and spent the best part of his weekly cheque on 17 pints of Tooheys Old. Most Australians don’t drink that way anymore, so the business of booze has changed.

In a trend conscious market, bars and pubs now differentiate largely on product, which includes the beer taps. “People want to be excited by the food they are eating and the beer they are drinking,” Adamson says.

I would have to agree. As a bartender in Canberra, I slung out more 4 Pines Pale than Reschs Draught by a factor of four. That’s enough craft beer to satisfy every hipster in Canberra twice over, so it wasn’t just “beer nerds” demanding something different.

“Craft beer tastes bad” is a simplistic opinion at odds with the changing tastes of many pub goers. In most cases, however, the option of a regular beer is always on offer, which makes complaining about more options at the bar kind of redundant anyway.

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A Matter Of Hops

On the subject of taste, much of the criticism notes that craft brewers produce beer that is too “hoppy”. Every small brewer has at least one IPA, it’s true. However this new trend in beer-making is actually a good business move; a brewer needs to be noticed by the early adopter market, and this market seeks out certain types of beer. “You want to make big impact. You need to have a market when you first start” says Adamson.

Patrick Ale suspects that once craft beer becomes more established, the market will expand to accommodate all drinkers. “In terms of flavour profile, high hopped beer may plateau as consumers tastes change and move more toward ‘session-able’ beers with less hops but high flavour and even lower alcohol”.

The rise of craft beer is not only good news for bars and brewers, but for primary producers as well. The key ingredient behind much of the flavour in beer are hops. These flowery little buds were widely grown in the Derwent Valley in Tasmania and Northern Victoria, but as the beer market homogenised in Australia, so did the plant. Eventually, growers were only cultivating varieties which had a high concentration of Alpha acids, the compound which makes beer ‘bitter’.

The need for lower hop volumes in beer production practically killed hop production in Australia, until craft beer revitalised the industry a few years ago. The demand for different “aroma” hop varieties has seen the rise of “Galaxy,” “Enigma” and “Summer” hops as well as the cultivation of new varieties such as “Melba”. These unique aroma hops present a new opportunity for both Australian hop and beer producers who want to differentiate and compete on a global scale.

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Futuristic Beer In The Modern World

So things are looking good for craft beer, despite what cranky internet commentators will say, but this also should be kept in perspective. Yes, craft beer is growing, but it still only represents about 2% of the Australian market. The room for growth, however, is promising.

“If we look at the United States, craft beer has been in phenomenal growth for the last 10 years and is now 10% of their total beer category… so I believe there is still a huge amount of growth to go for craft beer into the future,” Patrick Ale explains.

Perhaps some of this growth is necessary in an increasingly environment-conscious society. Richard Adamson sees this as an opportunity to experiment new business models and relationships between brewers, pubs and consumers. Along with lower carbon miles for the product, locally produced beer allows consumers to interact directly with suppliers through a Growler system, allowing people to return used bottles in exchange for ones with fresh beer.

“We’ve got a really good local community out here that get behind [the Growler system], and we have a really good return rate for our bottles… once you get up to seven or eight times you are becoming carbon neutral compared to a non returnable bottle” said Adamson.

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Go With The Foamy Flow

At the end of the day, most of the criticism of craft beer comes down to good old-fashioned hipster bashing. Yes, yes, we all hate hipsters. Hipsters hate hipsters. But should you eat nothing but discounted Wonder White because your cafe manager friend won’t shut up about the Ancient Egyptian yeast used in his crusty sourdough?

Craft beer is good news for pubs, brewers, growers and consumers. It’s refreshing to see a new direction in an Australian product which has been traditionally bogged down in tired ’70s-era stereotypes.

For the most part, however, people just want to sit down with a beer and enjoy themselves. As Richard Adamson put it: “Drink what you like!”

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Nic Sheehan is a freelance writer based in Melbourne. He blogs at nic.wizardcity.co.