Boston Beer keen on Brewers Association revising craft brewer definition

For the time being, the Brewers Association (BA) restricts its membership to craft brewers which are small, independent and traditional. This means that brewers’ annual production must be 6 million barrels of beer or less; that Big Brewers can only own less than 25 percent in them, and that the majority of their total sales volumes must be beer. Flavoured alcoholic beverages are not considered beers.

The trouble is: should Boston Beer, the brewer of Sam Adams beers, see volumes of its non-beer products rise to over 50 percent of total output – as is likely to happen in 2018 – it will need to be evicted from the ranks of the BA’s members.

Of course, the BA does not want this to happen. But, at the same time, the BA does not want to be seen as tweaking the rules just to keep one albeit large, member on board.

Cleverly, the BA recently conducted a poll among about 1,000 of its members. It revealed that many more craft brewers seem intent on following in Boston Beer’s footsteps by producing non-beer products. The consequence is that the BA could amend or scrap the “traditional” part of its definition.

“As it reads today, the traditional pillar of the definition stifles the innovation that our breweries are using to survive or succeed,” Eric Wallace, co-founder and President of Left Hand Brewing and Chair of the BA’s Board of Directors, wrote in an email to members. “This change will allow companies to operate both in traditional and innovative ways and still be a part of the craft brewer data set.”