Sunday, January 29, 2012

Craft. Oh for goodness sake. #3

It's a way of doing things, isn't it? It's in the making. It's not, as such, a property of the made thing. It's not a style, or kind, of thing. So why look for it in the product? It's in the process.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

That's a very Marxist way of looking at it. And, um, wrong.

Martyn Cornell

Curmudgeon said...

So piss brewed with loving care in a ramshackle shed using twigs is craft beer, then? Right...

Fishter said...

@Curmudgeon
Absolutely. But that just goes to show what an all-encompassing term it is.

I've said it in the past and I'll say it again - I want GOOD beer. Not 'craft' or 'real'; GOOD.

StringersBeer said...

@zythophile: "wrong"? Excellent snappy comeback! (insert your favourite quip on standard of debate on Interwebs)

@Curmudgeon: don't be a dick mate.

@Fishter: see above

Everybody: Can you see how an excellent process might indeed give us a tasty liquid [happy face!] and how a poor process might turn out "piss" [sad face]. Can you see how an excellent, craft, process might give the product desirable, value-enhancing qualities over and above those measurable in the liquid?

No? That's a pity, since you're not then qualified to express an opinion on this matter that anyone need listen to. Thus, you wasted your time commenting here, and ours reading.

Anonymous said...

You seem to want us to believe in some mystic, spiritual, unmeasurable quality transmitted to the product solely because the process used is labelled "craft". Which is William Morris-style bollocks. You're confusing production and product. And dismissing people who disagree with you as unqualified to express their opinions shows a worrying megalomania.

Martyn Cornell

StringersBeer said...

No, I don't want you to believe that at all. You seem determined to make a straw man. But that's a dishonest mode of argument which I don't have to engage with. Or as you might say: "Balls".