What Is a Craft Brewery? (And Why the Definition Keeps Changing)

What Even Is a Craft Brewery Anymore?

For decades, there was a relatively clean answer to this question. A craft brewery was small, independent, and made beer using traditional methods. The Brewers Association, the industry's main trade organization, had a definition. It had numbers attached to it. It had rules.

Now that definition is a mess, and honestly, it's kind of revealing.

The technical definition from the Brewers Association says a craft brewery must be: Small (producing less than 6 million barrels per year), Independent (less than 25% owned by a non-craft company), and Brewer (having a Brewer's Notice from the federal government). Simple enough, except the BA has changed these thresholds multiple times because they kept having to redefine what "small" means.

But there's a bigger problem lurking underneath all of this. The definition keeps changing because the industry is asking the wrong question. We're not actually trying to define what a craft brewery is. We're trying to define what we mean by supporting craft beer, and those are two totally different things.

The Numbers Keep Moving, And There's a Reason

When the Brewers Association first established their definition, they set the production cap at 2 million barrels per year. That seemed like a reasonable number to distinguish a "craft" brewery from the industrial operations churning out billions of barrels for Anheuser-Busch InBev.

Then Boston Beer, which everyone loved because they were independent and made good beer, kept growing. By the early 2000s, they'd passed 2 million barrels. They were still independent. They were still making interesting beer. But by the BA's definition, they were no longer a craft brewery.

This was awkward. You couldn't tell someone that Boston Beer wasn't craft anymore, so the BA raised the cap. They bumped it up to 6 million barrels. Suddenly Boston Beer was back in the club.

The point isn't that Boston Beer is bad or good. The point is that "craft" was never really about the numbers. The numbers were supposed to be a proxy for something else. Small enough to stay independent. Small enough to maintain quality. Small enough to stay nimble.

But if you're at 6 million barrels, you're not small. You're a medium-sized regional company. You're big enough that your decisions affect the entire industry. You're big enough that a hedge fund might want to own a piece of you.

The BA's definition is trying to draw a line where one doesn't naturally exist.

Independence vs. Reality

The independence requirement is supposed to mean that 75% or more of the brewery is owned by craft-producing companies, not by massive multi-nationals. That sounds clean.

Then Anheuser-Busch started buying craft breweries. Goose Island. Wicked Weed. 10 Barrel. Blue Point. Shock Top. They didn't buy them and shut them down. They bought them and kept them operating as supposedly independent brands. The breweries could keep their names, keep their recipes, keep their local management.

But they were now making decisions with parent company input. Distribution changed. Ingredients changed. Marketing changed. They became a Frankenstein creature: technically independent by the BA's definition, but actually corporate.

This isn't about the quality of the beer necessarily. It's about the decision-making power. Goose Island still makes good beer. But Goose Island's decisions about what styles to produce and how to market them are made inside a corporation that also owns Budweiser.

That's not craft beer. That's corporate beer that tastes good.

The "Traditional" Pillar Got Dropped (And That's Actually Revealing)

Until recently, the Brewers Association had a rule that craft breweries had to produce beer with "traditional ingredients." The three tier definition was: Small, Independent, and Traditional.

Then the BA dropped "traditional." Why? Because breweries started making seltzer, and also ciders, and also other things, and some of those breweries wanted to call themselves craft breweries.

You can understand the logic. A brewery that makes excellent seltzer using the same precision and craft philosophy as they apply to beer probably deserves to call themselves a craft operation. The fermentation knowledge carries over. The ingredient sourcing is just as meticulous.

But it also highlights the fundamental problem. The definition isn't about beer anymore. It's about an umbrella term for "small independent producers of fermented beverages." And once you've diluted it that much, it doesn't mean much.

So What Actually Matters?

Here's what craft beer was always supposed to mean: beer made by people who cared about the beer more than they cared about quarterly earnings. Beer that reflected the brewer's actual taste and philosophy, not a focus group. Beer that had some risk, some point of view, something that distinguished it from the 200 other pale ales on the shelf.

You can make that beer at 100 barrels a year or 5 million barrels a year. The BA's definitions don't actually capture whether you're doing it or not.

The Independent Craft Brewer Seal is a thing that exists. It's an upside-down bottle logo that independent breweries can use to signal "we are not owned by a massive corporation." It's a useful marker, but it's still crude. It doesn't tell you whether the brewery is actually making weird, interesting, risk-taking beer, or just making competent beer using the craft brewery playbook.

The Acquisition Wars

Here's the inconvenient truth: a lot of the beer industry is now owned by people who don't care about craft philosophy. Anheuser-Busch InBev doesn't believe in craft beer. They believe in beer that sells. If craft beer sells, they'll own a craft beer company. If craft beer stops selling, they'll strip it for parts or close it.

This matters because it changes the risk calculus for breweries. An independent brewery can take risks. They can make a beer that might not work. They can pursue a weird vision. If it doesn't work out, they fail, and they tried something. That's how you get innovation.

A brewery that's 51% owned by a corporation? They can't take those risks anymore. Corporate ownership means risk mitigation. It means focus groups. It means cautious decision-making.

The beer might still be good. But it stops being craft in any meaningful sense.

Why This Matters to You

If you care about craft beer, you should care about the distinction between "small independent brewery" and "corporation's craft subsidiary." Not because one is bad and one is good. But because they make different kinds of decisions.

The best beer in the world might come from either one. But the future of diversity and innovation in beer comes from the independent places taking weird risks.

When you're choosing where to spend your money and your attention, that distinction matters. A brewery that's making decisions autonomously, owned by people with skin in the game, is more likely to continue doing interesting things. A brewery that's a subsidiary is more likely to eventually become a line item on a spreadsheet.

The Real Craft Brewery Definition

If the Brewers Association asked me, I'd define a craft brewery like this: A brewery where the primary decision-making authority about beer production, style, and philosophy is held by people whose primary interest is making good beer, and where the brewery's primary revenue source is beer sales.

That includes 100-barrel operations. It includes 1-million-barrel operations. It includes breweries that also make food or merchandise. It excludes subsidiaries of major corporations, even if technically they can call themselves independent.

But that's not a useful industry definition because it doesn't fit neatly into regulatory categories or allow for the kind of quantification that industry organizations love.

So instead we get the Brewers Association definition, which is useful as a rough proxy and completely useless if you're actually trying to understand what's happening in beer.

The FAQ

What's the current official Brewers Association definition of a craft brewery?

A craft brewery is: Small (less than 6 million barrels per year), Independent (less than 25% owned by a non-craft company), and a Brewer (holds a Brewer's Notice from the federal government). They recently dropped the "traditional ingredients" requirement to include breweries making other fermented beverages.

Is Boston Beer still a craft brewery?

By the BA's definition, yes. Boston Beer is independent and under 6 million barrels per year. By a common-sense definition of "craft," it's debatable. It's large enough to have significant corporate decision-making structures, but still makes interesting beer.

If a big corporation buys a craft brewery, does it stop being craft?

By the BA's definition, if they retain under 25% ownership stake, the brewery can still call itself craft. But in practical terms, corporate ownership changes decision-making, which changes the risk profile and the beer itself. It's technically craft but functionally corporate.

Can I find out if a brewery is independently owned?

Yes. Look for the upside-down bottle Independent Craft Brewer seal, which only truly independent breweries can use. You can also research the ownership structure on the Brewers Association website or through brewery websites.

Does the definition matter if the beer tastes good?

Good beer is good regardless of ownership. But if you care about supporting businesses that are more likely to take risks and remain independent long-term, the definition matters more than the immediate taste.

The Recommendation

Don't get too hung up on the official definition. What matters is whether the brewery you're drinking from is owned by someone who wakes up thinking about beer, not someone who wakes up thinking about shareholder returns.

The easiest way to tell: go to the taproom and ask who owns it. If the answer is "we do" and those people are present and making decisions, you're good. If the answer is a corporation based somewhere else, you're probably supporting something else.

Both might be delicious. But only one of them is likely to take risks on something weird and wonderful next year. 🍺

Check out CityPints' brewery directory to find independently owned breweries in your area.