There are breweries in Europe with a history several times longer than that of the US.
The brewery for Spaten, for example, has a lineage first mentioned in 1397. Meanwhile, Stella Artois is the product of a brewery that first opened as a tavern in 1366 and was then purchased and renamed to the Brouwerij Artois in 1717 by its new owner Sebastien Artois.
These breweries have been around since the literal Middle Ages. Meanwhile, America’s oldest operating brewery is D.G. Yuengling and Son established in 1829 (No shade to it. It’s a good beer).
Edit: Because I’ve gotten a lot of comments about it and I can’t keep up with everyone I wanted to quickly clarify my stance. No, I do not think that the modern Spaten and Stella breweries are craft. They are, without doubt, modern “macro” breweries. By my definition, “craft” indicates brewing smaller scale, personal, batches with a focus on quality over quantity. With this in mind, I am of the opinion that those breweries were “craft” when they started out as they independently brewed quality stuff on a smaller scale. However, they were not called that at the time because the term would have been meaningless. In the Middle Ages (or before) everyone was crafting beer on that same scale and the concept of “macro” was nonexistent. So yes, the breweries I listed are not “craft” as we see the term. However, they were “craft” before the term ever needed to come into being.
He probably meant the microbrewery trend which more or less sprung up simultaneously in the US and UK. But even then he's still wrong in multiple ways. It's a trend so nobody really invented anything and it wasn't solely the US. Artisanal breweries are centuries old like you alluded to.
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u/Blackbox7719 27d ago edited 27d ago
There are breweries in Europe with a history several times longer than that of the US.
The brewery for Spaten, for example, has a lineage first mentioned in 1397. Meanwhile, Stella Artois is the product of a brewery that first opened as a tavern in 1366 and was then purchased and renamed to the Brouwerij Artois in 1717 by its new owner Sebastien Artois.
These breweries have been around since the literal Middle Ages. Meanwhile, America’s oldest operating brewery is D.G. Yuengling and Son established in 1829 (No shade to it. It’s a good beer).
Edit: Because I’ve gotten a lot of comments about it and I can’t keep up with everyone I wanted to quickly clarify my stance. No, I do not think that the modern Spaten and Stella breweries are craft. They are, without doubt, modern “macro” breweries. By my definition, “craft” indicates brewing smaller scale, personal, batches with a focus on quality over quantity. With this in mind, I am of the opinion that those breweries were “craft” when they started out as they independently brewed quality stuff on a smaller scale. However, they were not called that at the time because the term would have been meaningless. In the Middle Ages (or before) everyone was crafting beer on that same scale and the concept of “macro” was nonexistent. So yes, the breweries I listed are not “craft” as we see the term. However, they were “craft” before the term ever needed to come into being.