'Craft or Crap' App Exposes Dubious Crafty Beers
Craft beer’s continued popularity isn’t going unnoticed. As the segment continues to experience tremendous growth — production was up 9.6 percent in 2013 while overall beer sales dropped by as much as 1.4 percent — global brewing behemoths like AB InBev and MillerCoors are trying to cash in on the craze with dubious brands like Blue Moon and Shock Top that masquerade as small production craft beers.
To help navigate this tricky landscape and expose these crafty impostors, craft beer devotees Barrett Garese and Rudy Jahchan developed Craft Check, an iPhone app that scans beer bottles, cans and packaging to determine if the suds inside are indeed truly craft-brewed or just mass-produced crap in disguise.
But not everyone is thrilled about Craft Check’s arrival.
While it was developed and released without any affiliation with the Brewer’s Association, Andy Thomas, the often outspoken CEO of Craft Brew Alliance (parent of Redhook Brewery, Widmer Brothers Brewing, Omission Beer and Kona Brewing Company) used a recent profile of the app in Fortune as an opportunity to air his grievances over the Colorado-based trade association’s recent revision of its craft brewer definition.
Brewbound reports that while the definition was tweaked to accommodate brewers like the ever-expanding Boston Beer Company, it shuts out Craft Brew Alliance brands due to AB InBev’s ownership stake in them.
Photo: Craft Check
Tags: Beer