The craft beer revolution is underway. In 2015 sales were up 14%, whilst sales of traditional beers fell by a similar amount; but what is all the fuss about?
First off, I should preface this by saying that the ‘Craft Beer’ currently available in most supermarkets is not actually craft beer. Brew Dog and Meantime are pretty much the only mass-produced craft beers out there, and with Meantime having been bought by SABMiller (owners of Fosters) recently, even that is a tentative statement.
So what exactly is the difference?
Before embarking on this conversation, it is necessary to know a little bit about how beer is brewed. In highly basic terms, you get a load of grain, usually malt, mash it up and boil it. This sweet mash is then fermented, and hops are added to bitter and add flavour.
The biggest and most obvious difference, between standard and craft beer, is in the ingredients used in the brewing process:
In standard beers the taste mainly comes from the malts and fermentation process. At the end of the fermentation a small sprinkling of hops are added to create a bit of extra flavour. This is why most Lagers taste pretty much identical – 95% of the ingredients are the same, though there’s some variation in the strain of malt used, and some tasting notes derived from the yeasts. Due to the amount of chemicals used to clarify, stabilise and increase shelf-life, most of the finer tastes produced by the hop and malt blends are wiped out anyway.
With craft beer, the flavour comes predominantly from the hops. Out of the total ingredients used in a craft brew, the hops make up around the 40% mark. This gives craft beer much more depth to its taste, and much more unique flavours. There’s a Chocolate Stout brewed by Howling Hops, that anyone who doesn’t believe this needs to try. Most Chocolate Stouts use real chocolate as an additive in the process (See Meantime Chocolate Porter or Samuel Smiths). Howling Hops use a blend of dark malts and carefully selected hops to create a very chocolaty brew. The list of flavours you can create with hops is endless but here’s a small list of some of the most common ones: Orange, Grapefruit, Blackcurrant, Apricot, Mango, Herbs, Pine, Mint, Tea, Grass, Cucumber, Thyme, Sage, and Flowers.
Most Craft Beers also use no chemicals in the process! Whilst people can get quite obsessive over the amount of chemicals within various products, there is one important reason why the use of chemicals in beer is categorically a bad thing. It makes your hangover worse! The reason why you’re supposed to let real ale settle is because otherwise you’ll have a headache worse than your worst hangover after a couple of pints.
I hope that’s cleared things up a bit! And if you’d like any suggestions on great beers to try, feel free to call us on 020 7866 2312.