title_body: Craft Beer vs Real Ale
upvoted_answer: First, a disclaimer:  I'm American and most of my knowledge of craft beer comes from the American beer scene.  I am somewhat aware of the evolution of the UK brewing industry, but nowhere near as knowledgeable as I am about America's.
  
  Now, definitions.  Craft Beer commonly derives the Brewer's Association definition of a Craft Brewer.  Which is Small, Independent, Traditional.  Sparing the specifics it's a definition meant to exclude the world's largest brewing companies, and their "crafty" portfolios.  "Crafty" is a pejorative used to describe brands or brewers which may or may not produce good tasting beer, but are owned by the larger brands in attempts to diversify their portfolios.  While the BA is primarily focused on the American market, it seems most European writers defer to their terms.
  
  Real Ale, is a distinctly British term.  Coined by CAMRA in the 70's it's more to do with the packaging and serving of the beer in the pub than the business scale of the brewer.  All Real Ale has to do is be cask conditioned and served via a gravity tap or hand-pulled with a beer engine.  This excludes a majority of what we in the US would consider craft beer, because it excludes anything kegged, filtered, force carbonated, or pushed with pressurized gas.
  
  This leads to an interesting overlap where an unfiltered beer, carbonated by natural fermentation, could NOT be a real ale because it was kegged and served on gas.  Also, nothing prevents a large brand like Murphy's or Beamish (both owned by Heineken) from marketing a "Real Ale".
  
  These definitions aside: It sounds like you may just be an IPA fan.  Your craft beer list is entirely IPAs.  It's not really accurate to conflate Craft and IPAs because plenty of craft beers are stouts, rye beers, Scotch ales, English bitters, or totally non-traditional things.
  
  Another issue you might have with "Real Ale" is a technical note.  Because it's exposed to oxygen as soon as the cask is tapped real ale tends to spoil if it's not drank quickly.  The characteristic tastes of oxidized beer are cardboard, and the characteristic tastes of beer left on dead yeast for way too long is soapy.  I can easily see that coming off as "waxy", especially if it's warmer than you're used to drinking and you've just downed some IPAs.
  
  Beer today is probably the best its ever tasted because of refinements in production techniques and farming.  Consumers are becoming interested in what their beer is made of so the quality of ingredients and care on a whole is improving.  But real ale is a niche,  there are going to be great traditional brewers making phenomenal beer, but it's prone to spoilage if not treated well.  There may also be those using it as a marketing gimmick.
  
  And finally a last point about industrialization:  It has vastly improved the quality of ingredient and process that all brewers use.  The huge brands we now have, all started off as craft at one point.  But if they are no longer craft they either couldn't weather the market and faced the choice of no longer being a company or selling to a business and risk becoming more about business than beer.  In the US we have large breweries proving you can still be pretty big and make good beer.  Sam Adams, Stone Brewing, Dogfish Head, Yuengling, are HUGE by craft standards and haven't compromised the quality of their ingredients because brewers are still in charge.  Industrialization will never prevent a brewery lead by a passionate brewer from making interesting beer, but leaving brewing decisions up to a business man will always making boring beer.