Why craft beer has the big breweries worried

Big breweries, it seems, are getting very nervous about the growth of craft beer. In the beginning, it all looked like a fad – was there really a market for fruity and bitter IPAs or a need for locally produced stouts or lagers?

But then things started to change. Craft beer in off-licences began to take up more and more space on the shelves; bars started offering a few alternatives from the usual row of taps. And people started to realise, perhaps, that drinking something high quality that was made locally has a feelgood factor too. Recent figures have confirmed this changing landscape: craft is consistently growing its share of the beer market while the macro-produced share is stagnant.

While some of the big breweries have responded by creating their own versions of "craft beer" – like HopHouse 13 by Guinness – what happened with Heineken recently seems to have taken things to another level. The brewery recently released a statement about its "low volume, high quality" products that were mislabelled and sold incorrectly as locally produced craft beer in Irish pubs.

So when a customer, perhaps while on holidays, sat sipping what they thought was a locally made beer with a locally inspired name, they were, in fact, drinking beer made by Heineken (or one of its products). The company says it is investigating how this came about. C&C has also admitted selling its Clonmel 1650 lager under a different name (Pana Lager) in Co Cork.

It's all a bit confusing to say the least, and a good time to keep an eye out for the Microbrewed in Ireland or ICBI logos that many Irish microbreweries carry on their bottles or websites – or certainly should do, given recent developments.

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beerista@irishtimes.com