the nit and gritty

[Victor Steinbok]

In isolation, it might appear that way. My apologies for not including
the full context. The post was in the thread on an article that quoted
the Blue Moon brewer complaining about craft beer snobs who tend to
ignore his product (wholly owned by Coors). To give you an idea what's
going on, this came from comment #308 in the thread. Given the context,
I don't believe there is any room for an alternative interpretation, but
you can judge for yourself.

> To the nit and gritty, it is technically a craft beer, considering
> making a brew is a craft. So, saying that, all brews including the
> ABInBev/SABMiller products would be considered craft. Now, one way to
> look at it is, is that brewing is the 'craft' and the product is the
> outcome. If in that case, then MY opinion would say to give them a
> little respect and say it is craft because it is not your standard
> domestic. I am not necessarily defending Blue Moon, but it is a decent
> beer. I would not go out my way to buy one or find one, but if I was
> offered a free beer by someone that would happen to be a Blue Moon, I
> would not say no. The one thing that makes me give credit to Blue
> Moon, even though they are owned by SABMiller, is that they do their
> own thing. For example, ABInBev now owns Goose Island and most people
> are not giving them troubles about it. The only thing that had changed
> for Goose Island is in the brew houses, some ABInBev signs were put up
> and that's about it. There is room for conversation about 'quality' of
> their main line brews being mass produced in other brew houses, but
> that is for another discussion. Blue Moon is doing what they need to
> do to stay with the growing industry. Just because they are a bigger
> company doesn't necessarily mean they make terrible beer, it just
> means they have an investor willing to give them 'free reign' on
> marketing. Personally, I like to try and drink more of the smaller
> local brews that aren't trying to grow nationally, just brewing for
> the love of it. I think that is where you get the 'best brews' and
> some of the 'of the wall' brews.
> Also, now looking at what I just type, I am sorry for such a long piece.

     VS-)




On 8/12/2013 1:08 PM, Mark Mandel wrote:
>> To the nit and gritty, it is technically a craft beer, considering
>> making a brew is a craft.
> I read your quotation as having a semantic change as well: that "nit and
> gritty" here meant "the knowledgeable ones. But it could just as well be
> "(To get down to) the ...", as y'all have been analyzing it here.
>
> Mark Mandel

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