Some of you may or may not know who Big Rock Brewery (TMX: BR) is. Generally, this is the case if you are from the United States, simply because it is a Canadian brewer, though some would argue whether they are a craft brewer or not. This is where things get fairly interesting, and where you may beging to see a bit of a grey area.
Big Rock produces over 20,000,000 litres of beer per year. In Alberta, their most well known products are Traditional, an english style brown ale, and Grasshopper, an American style wheat beer. Their best selling products, however, don’t belong to any of their craft beer offerings. What some people don’t realize is that Big Rock also happens to produce adjunct lagers in the form of Alberta Genuine Draught, Co-Op Gold, Bow Valley Lager and other contract beers. These beers account for nearly half of their production volume.
Some make the argument that Big Rock is not a craft brewery simply because of their size. If that were the case, companies like Dogfish Head, Boston Beer Company (NASDAQ: SAM) and Sierra Nevada would no longer be considered craft breweries. As a matter of fact, it is thanks to Boston Beer that the Brewers Association now accepts the idea of breweries producing as much as 6 million barrels of beer (over 35 times more than Big Rock’s production), craft brewers.
From that standpoint, Big Rock produces great craft beers, and they also put out seasonal beers frequently. Whether people like them or not is another story, but you can’t say they don’t try being a little creative here and there. To be honest, with my experience brewing beer, having brewed nearly 40 batches of beer from scratch, there are only a small handful of recipes that I consider to be exceptional (A or A+ rated), and a larger number that I could consider sellable (B or C rated). Not every craft brewery will put out world class ales and lagers, and no craft brewery is an exception to this.
Where the waters get a bit muddy is in the manner that a significant portion of their beer is produced.
A brewer who has either an all malt flagship (the beer which represents the greatest volume among that brewers brands) or has at least 50% of its volume in either all malt beers or in beers which use adjuncts to enhance rather than lighten flavor.
- Brewers Association
This caveat is included primarily because of how larger macro breweries produce their beers, and for what reason. Adjuncts such as rice or corn sugar are typically added to beers not only to lighten the flavour, but to reduce the overall cost of brewing, without regard to enhancing the beers flavour. This is also a typical strategy being employed in markets trying to sell beer as cheaply as possible. It isn’t necessarily a bad business model.
Mountain Crest made millions on buck-a-beer product. Drummond brewery used the busk-a-beer market to push their production volume to 10,000 hectolitres per year within a couple years. It isn’t bad business, but are you a craft brewer for it? No. This principle applies specifically to adjuncts, and it is usually a fair assumption that cheap beer uses adjuncts like corn sugar, because it costs less than malted barley.
Is Big Rock a craft brewery? Yes, and here is why:
- They still produces mostly craft beer and generates more of their revenue from craft beer than adjunct beers.
- They still focus their primary public relations and marketing towards their craft lineup of beers.
- Even as a public company, their annual reports put a major focus on their top craft brands.
- They put effort into creating new brands and flavours to increase the impact of craft beer in Alberta.
- They want to increase awareness of craft beer in Canada as much as any other craft brewery as more of their profit per unit of work is still within craft beer.
Some may disagree with me on this conclusion, but right now, we have decided that a brewery can either be a craft brewery or not. We haven’t really discussed or accounted for craft breweries who may either contract out, or brew cheap adjunct beers as part of their overall production volume. It isn’t mentioned in the definition set out by the Brewers Association. Beers like Alberta Genuine Draught and Bow Valley Lager may be cheap beers, but they aren’t branded as Big Rock beers, even though they are, which tells me that there is a huge value to the company to maintain the perception to the public as a craft brewer.
The caveat that I would put in place here is that a majority of a brewery’s revenue should come from craft beers, and that at least 80% of their marketing budgets are used to promote their craft beer related products and services to the public. This I think Big Rock falls within, and therefore should still be considered a craft brewery.
That being said, I would still like to see some collaboration beers come out of Big Rock that have been brewed with other Alberta based craft breweries.
