219 - What makes an Independent Brewery? SIBA’s Indie Beer Campaign

2024-11-18

Recently SIBA (The Society for Independent Brewers and Associates) launched their Indie Beer campaign, designed to define what independent beer really is. According to SIBA, ‘Independent beer is handmade by real people who truly care about the quality and flavour of the beer they are producing’. They have also produced a set of guidelines to determine which breweries are independent and a tool for consumers to check which breweries meet the criteria. We look at SIBA’s criteria and ask if this really does the UK craft beer industry justice. We compare it to the Brewer’s Association in America’s ...

Recently SIBA (The Society for Independent Brewers and Associates) launched their Indie Beer campaign, designed to define what independent beer really is. According to SIBA, ‘Independent beer is handmade by real people who truly care about the quality and flavour of the beer they are producing’. They have also produced a set of guidelines to determine which breweries are independent and a tool for consumers to check which breweries meet the criteria.

We look at SIBA’s criteria and ask if this really does the UK craft beer industry justice. We compare it to the Brewer’s Association in America’s criteria to define craft beer and add our own thoughts on how we choose the beer we drink and breweries we support.

Does SIBA’s criteria help those that are confused about independent beer, or is it creating barriers for certain breweries?

Let us know your thoughts on the Indie Beer campaign in the comments.

You can find out more about the campaign here:

https://www.indiebeer.uk/index.php

This article from SIBA details their reasoning and research:

https://www.siba.co.uk/2024/10/22/new-campaign-helps-consumers-identify-true-independent-breweries-as-demand-for-local-beer-rises/

You can see the Brewers Association definition here:

https://www.brewersassociation.org/statistics-and-data/craft-brewer-definition/

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