In a brewing landscape where the consumer has more choice than ever, forget trying to define craft and instead, ask what your religion is.
Ask what made you leave the career you had planned to join the world of brewing, which is significantly harder and a tough way to make money.
Speaking at the second Brewers Congress in London, Garrett Oliver, brewmaster at Brooklyn Brewery told us that if you don’t have a religion, then you cannot be a craft brewer.
So what is your religion, and what separates you from those around you? And if you don’t care about quality, then you cannot be a craft brewer. Your name on that can or bottle has to mean something.
You’ve probably enjoyed one of Garrett Oliver’s beers, or read one of his books. Or maybe you’ve attended one of his many tastings, dinners or cooking demonstrations.
The point is, very few in the world of modern beer are unfamiliar with his good name, and 25 years since joining Brooklyn Brewery, he’s helping educate and inform a new generation of beer fans and brewers.
The beer world has many parallels with the music industry. A band like Metallica drew on their influences, British bands such as Black Sabbath, Judas Priest and Motörhead, to create their own sound. They went on to lead a scene for decades, and still do.
With that, they’ve inspired musicians in their tens of thousands to forge their own path. Plenty of those popular bands hail from the UK and are indebted to groups like Metallica for lighting that fire within them.
Garrett would know, having spent some of the early 1980s in London putting on live music, mixing with the likes of The Ramones, Billy Bragg and REM.
He also immersed himself in a wealth of British culture of which good beer is such an important part.
His introduction to cask-conditioned beer, dark, bitter, complex beer, was a far cry from much of the produce he was used to back at home in the United States.
This epiphany helped catalyse his love affair with great beer and brewing, and he’s never looked back. Brewmaster at Brooklyn Brewery since day one, Oliver has created beers that have stood the test of time. Alongside brews such as Sierra Nevada’s Pale Ale, Oliver’s beers have left an indelible mark on the palates of countless drinkers.
Just as bands such as Metallica have done in music, he’s inspired many to start their own breweries and go on their own journeys within the world of beer and brewing.
And having worked in more than 20 countries, and with countless breweries, he also knows a thing or two about getting your business right.
In this podcast, Garrett talks about the need to stay true to yourself, how the beer industry continues to transform, its parallels with the world of food and the importance of Nomenclature in beer styles.
