THE GIST
The Brewers Association’s “certified independent craft brewer seal” is no longer indie enough for one of the most beloved breweries in the world.
Stowe, Vermont’s The Alchemist has stopped using the seal introduced by the Brewers Association in 2017 because co-owners Jen and John Kimmich believe it no longer reflects the true independent ownership of their brewery. Instead, they’ve launched their own version that reads “100% independent, family owned.”
Jen Kimmich, who serves as CEO of The Alchemist, says the BA’s craft definition and its seal are no longer the best representation for her 17-year-old brewery. The company is best known for the world-renowned Heady Topper IPA and produces fewer than 20,000 barrels of beer between its two Vermont facilities, putting it somewhere around the 120th–130th largest BA-defined “craft” brewery in the country.
“We have nothing against the craft beer seal that the BA has come up with. I think it works for some breweries. We just don’t feel like it told consumers what we’re doing,” Jen Kimmich tells GBH. “The definition of ‘craft brewery’ under the BA has changed so much over the years, for us, it just doesn’t feel like it stands for small, independent breweries.”
The BA allows breweries to use its seal if they meet its “small and independent” criteria, but the BA has redefined these criteria four times in the past decade, most notably increasing the amount of beer a brewery can produce to still be considered “craft” under its definition. The changes have widely been seen as a way to keep Boston Beer, maker of Samuel Adams, in the fold, even as it has shifted more production into cider and flavored malt beverages like Twisted Tea and Truly Hard Seltzer.
Breweries meet the BA’s current definition of “small” if they produce under 6 million BBLs of beer annually. The BA also defines “independent” breweries as those in which “less than 25% of the craft brewery is owned or controlled (or equivalent economic interest) by a beverage alcohol industry member that is not itself a craft brewer.”
Jen Kimmich specifically cites the size of breweries allowed under the BA’s definition—“6 million BBLs is a tremendous amount of beer”—and the ability of those breweries to accept private equity money or join into larger craft brewery collectives as factors in The Alchemist’s decision to introduce its own seal. The largest BA-defined craft brewery is D. G. Yuengling and Son Inc., which made 2.6 million BBLs of beer in 2018, the most recent year of data available.
A spokesperson for the Brewers Association tells GBH the trade group “respects The Alchemist and craft beer pioneers John and Jen Kimmich,” but “the BA does not have a comment in response to their press release.” The BA directed GBH to FAQs about its craft brewer definition changes and information about its seal.
WHY IT MATTERS
The Alchemist’s business practices and brewing reputation make it a craft brewery poster child: John and Jen Kimmich are admired figures in American brewing. The brewery helped modernize IPAs with a greater emphasis on aromatic hops, inspiring a wave of early-2010s Vermont breweries including Hill Farmstead. The Kimmiches also operate their brewery as a B corporation—a third-party certification program that requires high standards related to “verified social and environmental performance, public transparency, and legal accountability”—and created the Alchemist Foundation to distribute resources to youth programs. Heady Topper is brewed completely with solar power.
Given all this, it’s particularly notable that the brewery feels the seal of the industry trade group designed to represent its interests no longer fits. (The Alchemist does, however, intend to maintain its BA membership.)
“When we are seeing so many breweries merge, even smaller craft breweries joining craft beer alliances, collectively those alliances make more than 6 million BBLs of beer a year,” Jen says. “I think the definition is confusing; it’s confusing for us. When you start looking at how much beer [BA-defined craft breweries] can produce, it gets even more confusing.”
The Alchemist is not the first BA member brewery to signal its distinction from the group’s official seal. When Austin’s Jester King Brewery announced it had adopted the BA seal in 2017, it did so in a lengthy post written by founder Jeffrey Stuffings enumerating a number of caveats and clarifications attendant to that decision.
“We personally find it odd that a brewery could be just under a quarter owned by a multi-national conglomerate and still be considered ‘independent,’” Stuffings wrote at the time. “Secondly, we’d count majority ownership by private equity firms as disqualifying. We have no insider knowledge, and are far from well-versed in the field of venture capital, but it’s our understanding that it’s only a matter of time until VC firms flip their brewery holdings for a profit.”
Still other breweries don’t particularly take issue with the BA’s craft definition, but feel the need to band together to form smaller, specialized groups designed to be more responsive to member needs. One such collective, the Sour and Wild Ale Guild, formed in 2017 to address the needs of that specialized segment of breweries.
“The BA represents all of craft beer, and they’re a great resource for that. This is focused and important to all of us. The guild would be made up of [only] brewers, but the BA is made up of financial advisors and people like that. This would be people who are working, breathing, making sour beer,” Erin Jones, then of Burial Beer Company, told GBH at the time.
While consumers may or may not be interested in breweries’ asterisks and variations on the BA’s craft definition and seal, some small and influential breweries clearly feel the BA’s definition dilutes the reputation of its “true” members. As the majority of beer businesses entering the U.S. market start and stay small—the median American craft brewery produces about 600 BBLs a year—these companies see the BA’s efforts as aligning more with the largest breweries who are losing market share or need tax breaks as a way to continue viability. The BA’s expanded definition of a “craft brewery” has created its own challenges, as the organization must balance the regulatory and legislative needs of those largest, deepest-pocketed members with those of its most numerous members: about three-quarters of U.S. breweries produce under 1,000 BBLs of beer per year.
Brewbound reported that at the Craft Brewers Conference in May 2018, Bob Pease, CEO and president of the BA, said brewers who’d signed a licensing agreement to use the mark (regardless of whether they implemented the mark on packaging or marketing materials) accounted for more than 75% of BA-defined craft brewer volume. However, surveys or polling are yet to demonstrate that average consumers see the BA’s “independent” logo as a pivotal part of their beer-purchasing behavior.
The acceptance of a different kind of logo as a status symbol highlights a fundamental gap between the BA and smaller, more niche members who see the value of a logo of their own choosing. In the case of The Alchemist and others, their own interpretations carry stronger personal weight by more closely aligning with their interests and ethos, representing what their own definition of “independent” can or should be.
The BA has demonstrated that the majority of its members are supportive of its “certified independent craft brewery” seal. The ones who aren’t though, are important exceptions. And their voices are getting louder.
Words by Kate Bernot