Craft Beer, By Any Other Name.

Maybe we've used up the phrase and worn it out. Or maybe it's come to mean something else. Some associate it with snobbery or elitism, while others would just prefer to talk about plain old beer. Fine. I can understand all those views.

But in the U.S. it evolved as a reaction to something immense, powerful, mass-marketed and industrial. The term has a negative definition in that it is not supposed to be any of those things, even if we are never quite sure what it actually is. The context is specific but not unique: In most countries around the world, it helps to differentiate a small-batch, locally made product from the national and international ones that all bear an eerie resemblance.

We might get tired of the name. But at least it has a purpose.