Very good point.
(and apologies in advance for what turned out to be a long reply)
If the notion of craftsmanship is pursued to its end I think we’ll find that none of the beers that claim to be craft beers are that at all. Beers made by commercial breweries and, I would think, just about all home brewers are far removed from what craftsmanship really is in its purest form.
Let me explain what I mean by way of an anecdote.
Way back in 1976 I went to South Africa to visit a mate before heading off up north on a road trip to Europe. My mate had just graduated as a systems analyst and working for a computer company in Durban that was automating a paper mill, and I was taken to have a look. It was a big, hot, noisy plant comprising two long production lines. At one end the pulp was taken up on a series of rollers and fed through dryers to the other end of the plant where the finished roll (the size of a small car) was released. A critical attribute of the finished paper was its water content which had to be about 11 per cent (from memory) which was measured by sensors as part of the computerised production process, and the speed of the various rollers was adjusted by the computer to achieve this result.
The computer itself was a row of cabinets with blinking lights and those old reel-to-reel program tapes spinning inside – reminded me of Lost in Space. I guess this was state of the art gear back then, but by modern standards it probably had about as much computer grunt of an STC 1000 has today.
Only one of the production lines was computerised – the other one was still manually controlled by a team of Zulu workers. I noticed that one of the Zulus, a wrinkled old man, would go up to the paper rolls that came off the manual line and placed his hand on the warm paper surface for a few seconds, then go and write something down in a book on a nearby table. I asked my mate what he was doing. He said, “He’s our competition and he’s hard to beat”. He explained that the old man had worked at the paper mill all his life, and he could tell the water content of the finished roll by laying his palm on its surface. And he was always right.
The old Zulu was a craftsman. He had learned through years of repetition and experience what 11 per cent water content felt like. And the paper he and his workmates produced was a product of that craftsmanship, whereas the computerised plant’s paper was – what? – something else?
So how to apply this notion of craftmanship to the making of craft beer? A craft brewer worthy of the name in its purest sense should learn his craft through his own senses and not through instruments and devices. He will bring his mash water up to strike temperature not by using a thermometer, but by watching the water vapour wisp up from the surface. And he knows that it looks different depending on the weather – in summer the water vapour is almost imperceptible, but in the cold of winter it will appear thick, almost smoky, as more vapour condenses in the cold air. But through years of observing, and perhaps learing from a master in his early years, he has learned his craft and he knows when the liquor is ready for the grain. And of course he would also touch the mash to know when the temperature is right, just as a nursing mother might splash a few drops of warmed milk on the back of her hand to determine if the bottle of milk is right to feed her baby.
The grain bill itself would not be weighed. Just as a chef making a sauce or dressing may not measure out the ingredients but observe the changing appearance and consistency of the food in the pan or bowl, neither will the craft brewer. He will know by the appearance of the mash and the resistance he feels from his mash paddle just how much grain is enough for the beer he is making. Neither will the craft brewer use calibration markings on his grain mill to get the grist he wants. He will start the mill and collect a handful of the first crushed grain as it leaves the mill, and rub it between his fingers. He knows when the mill is adjusted correctly by the gritty feel of the grain.
A craft brewer will not set a timer for his mash nor look at a watch or clock. He knows from brewing in the same place for years how the light changes in the brew shed, how the shadows shorten or lengthen with the passage of time. And he tastes the mash and can tell when it is as sweet as it can be. Similarly, during the boil he knows when to add hops, and he tastes of the wort to know when he has added enough.
So in its purest sense a craft beer would be one made by a craftsman who is in harmony with his surroundings, ingredients and experience and is less reliant on instruments and measuring devices. This is how beer was made up until the scientific revolution of the past few hundred years, and few if any beers like this are made by us today.
All the more reason perhaps to discard the word ‘craft’ from brewing and find some other tag. But let’s not abandon the pursuit of craftsmanship all together. In spite of all the gauges, PIDs, hydrometers and other tools we use, craftmanship is a quality that can not only make us better brewers but also better people.
