What is the difference between specialty beer and craft beer?

Specialty beer is the Dutch trade term for beer outside the pils segment, from tripel and witbier to stout, bok and IPA.

It is therefore a segment name from the trade and market figures, not a quality mark. Nederlandse Brouwers uses specialty beer as a market segment alongside pils and records only one subdivision: low-alcohol specialty beer with 0.5 to 3.5 percent alcohol, which makes up 11 percent of the specialty beer segment.

A brewery therefore does not have to meet any requirement to use the word. Large or small, machine-made or by hand: the word only says that the beer is not a pilsner.

Craft beer is the Dutch form of the American craft beer, a word that is about the brewery behind it and not about a beer style.

In the United States, craft refers to the size and ownership of the brewer. A craft beer there is therefore simply beer from a brewery that meets those requirements, regardless of style.

In Europe that word has never been defined. The Brewers of Europe speaks in its own publications of speciality beers and microbreweries. At the Brewers Forum of 2023 there was a session titled Craft and its meaning, which asked whether the word can be defined at all.

Neither word is protected, not in the Netherlands and not in the EU. The Warenwetbesluit Gereserveerde aanduidingen does not mention them.

What that decree does lay down is the designation bier itself: article 7b requires that at least 60 percent of the extract in the wort comes from barley or wheat malt. In addition, five further designations are laid down, each with its own limit on original gravity or alcohol percentage: pils (11 to 13.5 percent original gravity), bok or bock (above 15 percent), oud bruin (7 to 11 percent), low-alcohol beer (more than 0.1 to 1.2 percent alcohol) and alcohol-free beer (at most 0.1 percent alcohol).

Outside that list, everyone is free. Any brewery may put specialty beer or craft beer on the label without any requirement behind it.

Only the craft brewer definition of the American Brewers Association is a firm one, and it applies exclusively in the United States.

That definition sets three requirements. Small: annual production is at most 6 million American barrels. Independent: less than 25 percent of the brewery is owned or controlled by a drinks producer that is not itself a craft brewer. Brewer: the company holds a Brewer’s Notice from the American tax authority TTB, or owns the brand of a beer brewed in the United States.

Note what is defined there: the brewery, not the beer. The Brewers Association describes who is a craft brewer and leaves open what that brewer makes. A Dutch brewery falls outside it by definition.

Look at the beer style, the alcohol percentage, the brewery and the country of origin, because those four appear on the label and can be verified.

In the shop at Brink 2 in Bathmen there are 1,073 beers from 249 brands from 21 countries, with alcohol percentages from 0.2 to 33 percent. Of these, 549 beers from 104 brands come from the Netherlands and 370 from Belgium. Whether such a bottle says specialty beer, craft beer or neither changes nothing about what is in it.

Weet u de stijl die u zoekt, dan komt u er in het schap sneller uit dan met een van beide woorden. Wij verkopen geen alcohol aan personen onder de 18 jaar: NIX18.