When I first began working in the beer industry, the words “craft beer” were used as a shorthand to describe any beer that wasn’t cask or a more well-understood style or brand, such as lager or Guinness. (A caveat here: in Lancashire, where I live, “normal” beer has always been cask. When I worked in a local pub, calling something craft beer was a useful, if not mostly meaningless, way to explain to a customer that what they were getting wasn’t a pint of bitter.)
Over time, people came to understand that craft beer usually referred to one of those new American-style beers, full of hops and probably hazy. People were suspicious at first. Then they grew to love it, coming in each week to try new beers by breweries with unusual names, excited to taste the latest inventions in hops and malt.
