Recently in a cafe, when asked what beer was available, the waitress leaned over to me and with the look of someone revealing a big secret, said that they had Craft Beer! When asked if she recommended it, she said without a doubt! By the way, the beer was very decent.

The word “craft” among the general public has long been a guarantee of something special. The popularity of the term is off the charts. Why is it so? Perhaps because there is less and less human warmth in our lives? We stop writing letters with an ordinary fountain pen, sending text messages to each other, communicating on WhatsApp… Huge companies produce thousands of hectoliters of beer, good and bad, but at first glance the same. In supermarkets you can buy any kind of food, half-cooked or even fully cooked, and we miss our grandmother’s pies, which she used to make in an old aluminum pot filled with boiling oil…

And then there is the beer, brewed by hand, without computers. And the brewers declare that it is brewed according to their grandfather’s recipes and without any chemicals, although they have a very vague idea about the chemicals allegedly added at the breweries… Naturally, people are drawn to it. As people are drawn to everything that is made with their hands.

And brewers on this wave began to create new and unusual beer. In the 80s of the last century new hop varieties with unusual aromas were bred. It became possible to brew beer with bright, fruity flavors without any additives, but only by selecting the appropriate hops. And a dozen years later it became possible to communicate with like-minded people via the Internet and look for new recipes on the Web. At first unusual beer was brewed at home, then small breweries started to be created. The main difference between these breweries is the brewers’ direct involvement at all stages of the process and a touch of their soul in every liter of beer. After all, in craft beer people, besides the new and unusual, subconsciously look for a part of themselves, the very part that was taken away from us by “smart” machines, the very part that we lose in the pursuit of something ghostly…

A little illustration from personal experience. I once had to brew a beer at the experimental brewery where I work. Not something new, just to repeat a tried-and-true recipe. But the day before I had a fight with everyone I could and could not, at home, at work… And I came to work in the right mood… I brewed the beer “on full automatic”. The beer turned out perfect by all tests, but… absolutely “nothing” in taste. There’s a term that’s not official: “joyful” beer. So there was no joy and warmth in it, because I didn’t put it in…

It is the warmth that we lose in our lives that attracts people to craft beer. As they say, it’s the very price we pay for speed, for the crazy pace of our lives…

Certainly not every hand-brewed beer can be called a craft beer. After all the word craft is translated not only as craftsmanship but also as skillful work. And it’s not easy to brew really good beer. That is why it is not necessary to focus on the beer of small breweries. Craft beer is first of all the beer created by the real Master! Just drink beer and enjoy it, because it was originally designed to bring us happiness!