Brookston Beer Bulletin

Jay R. Brooks on Beer

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Pride Goeth Before A Fall

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The full quote from Proverbs 16:18, at least in the King James’ version, is “Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall” but the more common shortened version says it all. Essentially, the modern meaning of this proverb is not to be overly confident, especially in yourself, or you’re likely to have something bad happen to put you back in your place. If you allow yourself to become full of pride, you will find yourself humiliated. Be modest, that’s good advice to remember. It’s what happened to me on Sunday, and I offer up my cautionary tale by way of illustration.

I’ve done my fair share of prolonged drinking over the years, and rarely have I not been able to muddle through to the end. We (and by we I mean those of us who have been regularly attending GABF for many years) generally say about the Great American Beer Festival—by way of advice—that it’s a marathon, not a sprint to suggest that pacing is very important to a full enjoyment of the week’s events. So when I was invited to the 4th annual Keene Tasting on Sunday, the day after the Hard Liver Barleywine Fest at Brouwer’s Cafe, it simply never occurred to me that I wouldn’t be still standing after twelve hours and 150 beers. Alas, my body had other plans for me.

At 11:00 a.m., with our first beer of the day. Things went fine through the first 50 beers or so, when suddenly and quite unexpectedly I felt cold shivers shoot through my body. Initially undaunted, I assumed that the open windows letting in the fresh Seattle air had simply chilled the room so I put on my jacket and resumed tasting. But after another half-hour of involuntarily shivering it became obvious that all was not well and my body had decided to pitch a fit. I felt fine, apart from the chills, and struggled through until we almost reached the half-way point, 75 beers, and it was time for another break. I hunkered down in a comfy chair during the break and tried to will myself to warm up, but it did no good. When tasting resumed, I stayed put figuring I should not ignore my body’s tantrum, and still hoped it was just a temporary thing and my recovery was minutes away. A few kind souls asked if I was okay (perhaps I looked as bad as I felt) and I nodded and muttered that I was fine. But as more time passed and I was feeling worse, I decided to spare myself further humiliation and called in the evacuation troops — my wife — to come and collect me. About an hour later I was standing out front shivering in the cold and waiting for her arrival to whisk me to safety and nurse me back to health. This proved trickier than I might have imagined. Whether my weekend drinking had finally lowered my immune system to the point where I got the flu that’s been circulating in my friends and family for weeks or I simply drank too much, too fast, I can’t really say. All I know is that my chills turned to heat as I burned off a fever so bright that my wife said my skin was hot to the touch like an old-fashioned radiator and that she couldn’t even lie near me because I was radiating so much heat. By morning I only felt lousy, a distinct improvement. But that was nothing compared to the disappointment at not finishing the tasting. Perhaps I was at least a source of amusement for those I left behind, as I heard Bonney calling my name from the window above me as I waited for my ride. I called up, but I don’t think he heard me. C’est la vie. There’s always next year.


Our hosts, Vern and Bonney, the two Matts, during a toast to Michael Jackson’s memory with the beer made by Pike Brewing for the Michael Jackson Tribute dinner held the night before in Philadelphia. The first half of the tasting I enjoyed immensely, right up to the point where I had to leave or die.

For many more photos from at least the first half of the Keene Tasting, including some bottle shots of the beers sampled, visit the photo gallery.

Appeals Court Reverses Washington Costco Decision

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According to a breaking news press release I received from the National Beer Wholesalers Association (NBWA), the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has reached a verdict in the lower court’s earlier decision in Costco v. Hoen (Washington State Liquor Control Board), reversing a majority of it, which, according to the NBWA, “thereby affirm[s] the right of the states to regulate alcohol under the 21st Amendment – a system that works to protect the citizens of each state. While NBWA is still reviewing the totality of the Court’s opinion, it appears that state regulation has been validated.”

Disappointingly, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer’s report on this begins with the following loaded sentence. “A federal appeals court Tuesday dealt Costco Wholesale Corp. a setback on whether the giant warehouse club operator could lower prices of beer and wine for its customers.” I realize that was in the business section, but so much for impartiality. Swallowing Costco’s propaganda entirely, to say they sued the state so they could lower prices to consumers is at best not telling the whole story and at worst and out and out fabrication.

Of the nine laws and regulations Costco claimed restricted competitive practices, U.S. District Court Judge Marsha Pechman agreed and ruled over a year ago in their favor. Today’s appeals ruling reversed eight of those, with the exception of the post-and-hold requirement. It appears likely that it may now be appealed to the Supreme Court. According to the PI, “The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals said the state Liquor Control Board could prohibit discounts, ban central warehousing of beer and wine by retailers, require wholesale distributors to charge uniform prices to all retailers and require a 10 percent markup. The state had said if Costco won it could put into question the systems other states use to control alcohol consumption and safeguard the collection of taxes. At least 30 other states or jurisdictions had filed briefs in support of Washington.”

Reuters, on the other hand, more even-handedly stated that Costco “lost a bid on Tuesday to overturn Washington state liquor rules that control pricing and discounts.”

The Seattle Times and the Wall Street Journal have also now weighed in with stories of their own.

From the Wall Street Journal:

Costco’s 2006 triumph attracted a lot of attention because it suggested that major changes might be in store for the nation’s complex system of regulating alcohol sales. Changes in Washington state could have a ripple effect, because most states have similar laws.

Costco is challenging a regulatory architecture that dates to the repeal of Prohibition and was designed partly to discourage overconsumption of alcohol. Makers of alcoholic beverages sell to a distributor, which marks up the price and trucks it to a bar, restaurant or store, which then sells it to a consumer.

Costco is deciding whether to appeal the ruling. “We are pleased that the central part of the anticompetitive restraints provisions was struck down,” said David Burman, a Seattle-based lawyer handling the case for Costco, referring to the “post and hold” provisions. “It will be good for Costco members and other consumers.”

Seventeen other states have post-and-hold laws, Mr. Burman said. He added that he thinks Washington lawmakers “will likely” consider overturning other provisions.

Washington alcohol regulators may appeal the part of the ruling favoring Costco. “The state got a pretty good deal. It has to decide whether it can live with a regulatory scheme that sort of has one component plucked out and thrown away,” said Richard Blau, a lawyer who specializes in alcohol law with GrayRobinson, a Florida law firm. Regulators could leave it up to state lawmakers to address that aspect of the court’s decision.

The other reason that this so-called “regulatory architecture” was partly created, in addition to discouraging overconsumption, is to level the playing field among different sizes of businesses so that advantages were not given to larger businesses by virtue of their superior bargaining position and resources to make larger buys. That was the real reason Costco went after these laws, not because they were concerned that their customers might be paying too much for the beer and wine they sold. You’d have to be pretty blind to reality to swallow that one as their motivation, yet in mainstream media story after story that continues to be the reason stated.

 

Cognitive Branding

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This is slightly off topic — it’s more about advertising — but since Anheuser-Busch’s Super Bowl ads are singled out, and also because it’s quite interesting, I thought I’d pass it along just the same. An article in yesterday’s Advertising Age by a Lisa Haverty, titled Don’t Flush Your Ad Down the Super Bowl: Unless Your Spot Has Fundamental Cognitive Elements, No One Will Recall Your Brand, begins with this ominous warning. “If you’re not Bud, don’t bother.” Ouch, if I were spending $2.7 million on an ad promoting the Bulletin during the Super Bowl I wouldn’t be very happy to read that. But apparently unless I’m careful to incorporate “some very fundamental cognitive elements” in my ad, people will end up remembering it as another Bud ad. The Cognitive Science Conference — doesn’t that have fun time written all over it? — held last August in Tennessee (and sponsored by the Cognitive Science Society) revealed in a study that “[a]ds with poor ‘cognitive scores’ were misattributed by consumers, and beer ads were attributed to the huge Super Bowl presence that is Budweiser.” There are ways to avoid this from happening. As Haverty suggests, you have to follow the basic principles of cognitive science to make people remember who you are, or in the jargon, reliable brand recall.

Here’s an interesting example:

Take, for example, the concept of “working memory.” Information has to go through working memory to get into long-term memory, where brand awareness and loyalty reside. One of the principles of cognitive science is that a person can hold and process only about seven items in working memory at any given moment. This actually varies from about five to nine in the general population. If your ad has so much information that it exceeds working-memory capacity, you’ll lose control over what consumers are able to remember. Cog-sci lesson: Respect working memory.

There are a few other examples, read them if you find this sort of thing as fascinating as I do. What I really take away from all this, apart from the simple fact that one must be careful in how to spend $2.7 million, is something I always suspected about any large company’s approach to blitzkrieg advertising. By year after year being the biggest advertiser during the Super Bowl, A-B has set themselves up in a very enviable position. Any other beer or related commercial runs the risk of having their own ad remembered by consumers as being for the competition. Talk about a gamble. They’ve effectively made it almost impossible for any other beer company to reach their audience during one of the most-watched television events of the year. In essence, they now own the event, ad-wise. The cynic in me thinks that if they paid for it, they should reap the rewards, but my idealistic side hates that any big company with vastly more resources than all of his competition can just use a bludgeon to maintain his market position. But that’s what’s happening in virtually any industry you can name. Once upon a time, hundreds and thousands of small local and regional businesses competed more or less on a level playing field, at least more fair than today’s environment. Go anywhere in America today, and the number of national chain stores and other businesses dominating and squashing local competitors is astonishingly near completion. And that’s not good on so many levels. As the science of advertising gets better and better, we’ve truly been manipulated into thinking what’s good for GM is good for America. If that idea is allowed to run its course there will be two or three brands, at most, for literally every type of good you can name, and even at that each will be remarkably similar to one another. Only the cognitive branding, advertising and marketing will be able to identify any difference, and they’ll do so by the most dishonest of methods possible. Geez, I need a beer.

As an aside, there’s a very funny critique of this AdAge article by AdHurl, which as far as I can tell is by a thirty-year veteran of the ad game, George Parker. He calls out Haverty for her overuse of the word “cognitive” throughout her piece. It’s snarky and hilarious. A kindred soul.

 

Craft Brewers Merge, Too

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The last time I took a trip, that one to Denver for GABF, Miller and Coors merged their domestic operations. Now I’m in Munich, Germany on my last day of a long beer trip and Widmer Brothers and Redhook announce, they too, will be merging. I have got to stop leaving the house otherwise who knows what might happen next.

Maybe it’s because the news reports I read were from Seattle newspapers, but I was surprised that Redhook is the buyer because Widmer has been the much stronger performer ever since Anheuser-Busch purchased minority stakes in both breweries in the late 1990s. Shortly thereafter, Redhook was called “Budhook” derisively by many craft beer aficionados and their reputation, as well as their business, did appear to suffer. Certainly Redhook was not as active in the community as they had been before. Widmer Brothers, on the other hand, seemed to maintain their reputation and sales continued to grow. But perhaps more importantly, the Widmers continued to be active in the brewing community and were out in the public, effectively managing to keep the perception intact that they are a quality-minded small craft brewery.

Redhook reportedly will buy stock in Widmer valued at about $50 million. The new company’s name, with no touch of irony, will be called the “Craft Brewers Alliance.” Both Widmer and Redhook will continue to brew beer as before at their respective breweries.

Their combined output will be approximately 600,000 barrels, enough to catapult them into the top ten, probably around eighth or ninth. The pair separately was number 11 and 12 last year. Kurt Widmer will become the chairman of the Craft Brewers Alliance, which also has a stake in Chicago’s Goose Island Brewing and a distribution agreement with Hawaii’s Kona Brewing. Paul Shipman, who helped found Redhook, will be given the title chairman emeritus, but effectively will be retiring from the day to day operations of the business.

 

New Beer Magazine Covers Pacific Northwest

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According to the Portland Beer Blog Guest on Tap there’s another new beer magazine that’s hit the street. It’s Beer Northwest and will focus primarily on the Pacific Northwest. I met the publisher, Megan Flynn, at this year’s Oregon Brewers Festival and she seems like she has a good shot at succeeding with the new quarterly. Of course I may be slightly biased, I wrote the Washington Hops story listed on the cover. Go ahead, subscribe. You know you want to.

 

 

Bravo For the New Hop

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Countless new hop varieties are created every year, so many in fact that they are given only a number. A hop has to really prove itself worthy before it actually gets a name. For example, Hop #01046 began its life in Prosser, Washington at the Golden Gate Roza Hop Ranches. During the summer of 2000, a female hop known as Zeus was cross-pollinated with a male known simply as #98004 (whose mother is in effect Nugget hops). Its lineage, therefore, is “50% Zeus, 18.75% Nugget, 25% USDA 19058m, and 6.25% unknown.”

The following year, seeds were collected and the plant was grown in a greenhouse for the next two years, and screened for powdery mildew resistance, along with gender, vigor, and cone type. By 2002, #01046 was exhibiting higher than usual alpha-acid percentages with good resistance and several other very positive attributes. The next year, 2003, #01046 was asexually propagated and rhizomes from the original plant “were dug, divided and planted into multiple greenhouse grown containers.” Eventually, 4,000 softwood-cutting plants were created and then grown at two different locations, the original Roza ranch and also at Golden Gate Emerald Hop Ranches in Sunnyside, Washington. These plants represented the second-generation of the hop plant.
 

 

Over the subsequent three years the hops were grown, sampled, tested and analyzed on a variety of factors. These tests confirmed that the new hop had good resistance to disease, along with exceptionally high yield and high alpha-acids percentages. The hops were harvested and processed into 200 lb. bales, which were tested using the ASBC (American Society of Brewing Chemists) spectrophotometric method and showed “average alpha-acids level of 17.5% and beta-acids level of 3.5%.” The alphas were almost exactly the same as Mom (Zeus) but with much less loss of alpha-acids in storage, a good sign.
 

 

In 2005, third-generation plants were created and a large-scale field test was conducted at the Emerald Ranch. Declared a success, #01046 was re-christened “Bravo” and S.S. Steiner, who operated the hop fields in Washington, filed a patent application. 2006 yielded the first commercially available Bravo hops.
 

 

For every one of these success stories, there are hundreds that never make it. But even getting this far doesn’t guarantee a hop’s success. How it works in the beer is the final and arguably the most important test. So what will it taste like in your beer? Nobody’s certain, though there is a great way to find out. Tomorrow you have an opportunity to sample at least 21 single hop IPAs, using only Bravo hops, made by breweries from around northern California. Drake’s Brewing in San Leandro is hosting their 2nd annual Drake’s Brewing Beer Festival and Washoes Tournament. Each brewery will also be serving some of their other available beers so you’ll have plenty of other beers to sample, as well. But it’s a great educational experience on several fronts. First, you get to try a new hop in its debut in a commercial beer. Second, you can see firsthand how different brewers using different equipment but the same hop and the same IPA recipe can craft 21 beers that all taste distinctively different (at least that was the experience from last year when Summit hop was used at the festival). It should be a fun time. Come join us at Drake’s for a memorable afternoon of beer, food, music and games. See you there.

 

Bravo Hop Characteristics:

Alplha Acids: 14.-17.%
Cohumulone: 29-34% of alpha acids
Beta-Acids: 3-5% w/w
Total Hop Oils: 1.6-2.4% v/w

 

7.14

Single Hop Festival & Washoe Tournament (2nd annual)
Drake’s Brewing, 1933 Davis Street #177, San Leandro, California
510.562.0866 [ website ] [ directions ]

NOTE: The patent filing lists Bravo as #01046 but the photo shows #1046. So far, I’ve been unable to confirm which is correct.

 

Oly Pancakes

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olympia
Oakland Tribune staff food writer Steve Dulas did a fun piece on food for camping last week. He included baked apple, chili and, naturally, camp-style bean soup. But what caught my attention was a recipe for beer pancakes. Basically, the recipe calls for using a mix and substituting beer for the water, also including some oil or grease. But the author insists that Olympia beer must be used and that no other beer may be substituted. Hmm. They claim to have tried using a different beer that didn’t work as well, but neglected to tell us which beer they tried. As long as you use a beer similar to Oly, I really can’t see it making much of a difference.

Even Olympia beer, of course, hasn’t really been Olympia beer for at least four years, when SABMiller closed the old Tumwater, Washington brewery on July 1, 2003. Since that time it’s been made at any number of Miller breweries dotted throughout the west. Before that Olympia bought Hamm’s and Lone Star, but business continued to decline and the family (the Schmidt’s) decided in 1982 to sell to G. Heilemann, then one of the largest brewery businesses in the U.S. The following year, Pabst bought Heilemann, who later sold it to Stroh’s, which itself was eventually bought by Miller Brewing. Union politics probably led Miller to close Olympia, who by then was also brewing many other regional brands such as Hamm’s, Lucky Lager, Henry Weinhard and Rainier.

Olympia beer — than and now — is one of dozens of regional American-style light lagers that are all but interchangeable. What makes any of them unique has more to do with marketing and perception than reality. People don’t buy Olympia because it’s good, they buy it because it’s cheap. As pointed out by The Snitch (a blog at SF Weekly) Olympia beer is the “Offical Beer of 18-year-olds Walking Through the Door, Hoisting a 12-Pack Overhead and Shouting ‘Woo-Hoo!'” The Snitch tried Dulas’ recipe, both with Oly and Henry Weinhard’s Blue Boar Ale, perhaps not realizing the Henry Weinhard is an “ale” and Oly is a “lager,” concluding that the Oly was discernibly better. I’m still willing to bet any cheap lager will make the pancakes taste exactly the same.

The Snitch also wonders aloud (a-print just didn’t sound right) what the pancakes might taste like if made with “Pyramid Apricot Ale or Bass Peach Ale?” I’m not sure there’s enough apricot flavor in the Pyramid to give the pancakes any sweetness. The Bass suggestion is a complete bust, of course, because there is no such beer. The Snitch also ruminates over “Cranberry Lambic,” by which I presume he means Samuel Adams’ version of a lambic. And lastly, he believes Arthur Guinness would “come back from the dead and stop you” if you tried using his stout. I’m not sure why he feels so strongly about Guinness given that it has been used successfully in cooking for centuries. Despite being dark in color, it’s quite light-bodied and thus might work quite well in pancakes.

Certainly, the notion of taking the idea from the campground into the kitchen is an intriguing one, as is using different beers. For that to work best, I think, you’d have to throw out the mix and make the batter from scratch, however, and use richer beers to have them actually affect the taste of the pancakes beyond fluffiness and texture. Would the yeast in a bottle-conditioned beer contribute anything? [Lucy, Bruce, Sean – anyone know?] It could be fun to use something like Marin’s Blueberry Ale or a syrupy wood-aged beer.

Perhaps it was because I was hungry when I first read the article, but I think I’ll be giving it a try the next time I make pancakes. If you try it, too, let me know the results. Post a comment with the beer you used and how the pancakes tasted. Let’s build a beer pancake database.
 

Steve Dulas’ World’s Best Pancakes

oly-cakes
(Photo by Mike Lucia – Tribune Staff)

The preferred beer is Olympia. Any other American beer will likely mess this up — seriously. The morning we ran out of Oly and used another brand, the pancakes were not as tasty.

1 2-pound package Krusteaz Buttermilk Pancake Mix
4 to 6 12-ounce cans Olympia beer
1/4 cup vegetable oil or bacon grease

While the grill is heating to medium, pour pancake mix into a large bowl. Add beer, one can at a time, until the batter reaches a smooth consistency. When a few drops of water dance and sizzle on the grill, it’s ready. Wipe the grill with a thin coating of oil or grease on a paper towel, then drop batter onto the grill, about a half-cup per pancake. Cook about 2 minutes, and flip each cake when the top is covered with air bubbles. Cook another minute then serve. Makes 40-50 4-inch pancakes.

Note: If you’ve got a lot of campers you might want to graduate to the 5-pound package of Krusteaz and use more beer, up to a full 12-pack.

Olympia Brewery Finds a Buyer

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Olympia Brewery in Tumwater, Washington has been fallow since 2003, when Miller Brewing shut it down. The following year they sold it to a startup who planning on bottling water at the former brewery. But they ran into financial trouble and were forced into an involuntary bankruptcy. A deal has now been submitted for approval by the bankruptcy court for a Seattle company, the Benaroya Company, to purchase the brewery for $45 million. A hearing will be held July 5 at which time motions will be heard and a decision made. So far, there’s no word as to Benaroya’s intentions for the property, whether they want to refurbish and open the brewery or raze the 120-acres and develop it. It would be nice to see open again as a brewery, but I doubt that’s what will happen. It’s possible that Benaroya could break up the land into pieces and someone could buy the brewery grounds while they develop the rest into something else, it just doesn’t seem likely that buyer will step forward with the resources to bring the brewery back into shape. I’d certainly like to see it saved, for no better reason than the last time I was there was on my honeymoon.

Suggestions for Beer Haters

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There’s a post today on the Seattlest with the provocative title “Do You Hate Beer?” It begins:

Do you just absolutely hate beer? Have you ever been amazed that people would actually prefer to drink beer with their nice dinner, rather than the typical bottle of expensive red wine? If you are set in your beer-hating ways, try these libations. They may change your mind.

The author then lists five beers: Manny’s Pale Ale, Rochefort Trappistes 10, Lindemans Framboise, Duchesse De Bourgogne and Rogue Chocolate Stout. For each there is an explanation of the beer, what food to pair with it and even where in Seattle you can find it. I may not agree with every suggestion, but it’s a great idea to simply challenge people who believe they don’t care for beer to explore the diversity in beer that they probably aren’t even aware exists.

It might be a worthwhile project for some of us to put together a list of beers in a variety of styles to suggest for the person who doesn’t like beer to try, with this same sort of basic information. I like the idea of being able to give someone a list or give them a link to a ready-made list of suggested beers they might try. Who’s with me?

For trivia’s sake, the Seattlest is part of the Gothamist, a network of fifteen city blogs that do a good job of covering each city using local bloggers. Here on the left coast, in addition to Seattle, there’s also one for San Francisco and Los Angeles.

Nano Breweries

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Last week in the northwestern Washington Tri-City Herald there was a nice profile of a small Washington brewery, Laht Neppur Brewing, which is the last name backwards of the owners, Court and Katie Ruppenthal. The brewery is located in Waitsburg, Washington, which is in the southeastern part of the state, a little bit north of Walla Walla. The Ruppenthal’s brewery has been open a little over six months, having sold their first beer last June.

According to the article, they first thought most of their sales would be to local bars and restaurants but the brewery in their converted workshop has become a popular local hangout in its own right. Several of their popular beers sell out before they can be delivered outside the tiny brewery. But the Ruppenthal’s brewery is very laid back, with customers able to cook their own food on the grill. It’s become a community center of sorts.

Given the recent discussions about children at beer places, this passage lept out at me.

Children are welcome and even have their own toy boxes and a tiny broom to push around the broken peanut shells that litter the concrete floors. “We have a cement floor and metal furniture,” Katie said. “It’s not like, ‘Oh, they’re going to break something.”

But earlier in the article, co-owner and brewer Court Ruppenthal muses that his brewery is more like a “nano brewery” than a microbrewery, which started me thinking. A microbrewery is defined as a brewery that “produces less than 15,000 barrels of beer per year.” There are a few other bits to the definition, but that’s the main distinction. Above that are regional breweries (up to 2 million barrels) and then, simply, breweries (or big or national ones, with over 2 million barrels). There are only four breweries making more than 2 million barrels per year, and 53 that produce between 15,000 and 2 million (according to the 2006 figures from Modern Brewery Age). So out of roughly 1400 U.S. breweries, only 57 are large, leaving around 1,343 microbreweries (including brewpubs, whose definition has to do with their percentage of packaged beer sold).

So it seems to me on a practical basis, the term microbrewery doesn’t seem as useful anymore, or at least seems to need some modification. The various sizes of the remaining breweries and some patterns there seem to suggest some changes to the definitions. For example, below 15,000 annual barrels there are only five that brew more than 10,000 each year. Looking at the next 5,000 barrels down shows another big drop off, with only 19 breweries producing between 5,000 and 10,000 barrels per annum. So that means there are still a whopping 1,319 breweries that make less than 5,000 barrels per year.

If we keep going, only 10 make between 4,000 and 5,000 barrels annually, 16 between 3,000 and 4,000, and 17 between 2,000 and 3,000. This means 1,276 make less than 2,000 barrels of beer each year. Fully 67 breweries make more than 1,000 barrels so that’s still approximately 1,209 below a thousand barrels per year. The reason for doing all that math is to show that the overwhelming majority of breweries make a very small amount of beer each year. This is not to take anything away from their efforts, but in terms of what’s important to their interests, I have to believe they’re different from that of the larger concerns. There’s such a wide range of sizes within the definition of microbreweries that there must be a correspondingly varied set of issues they face, as well.

So I’m not quite sure where you’d draw the line, though at either 2,000 or 1,000 seems prudent. Those breweries, I think, we should define as nano breweries. Technically, the prefix “nano” means one billionth but more colloquially simply is used to denote the very small (as in nanotechnology). Fittingly, the Jargon File says the following about nano:

– pref. [SI: the next quantifier below micro-; meaning *10^(-9)] Smaller than micro-, and used in the same rather loose and connotative way. Thus, one has nanotechnology (coined by hacker K. Eric Drexler) by analogy with `microtechnology’; and a few machine architectures have a `nanocode’ level below `microcode’.

So in computer or math parlance, nano is directly below micro in terms of size. Next below nano is actually “pico,” technically meaning one-trillionth, but at some point it might also be useful to have microbreweries, nanobreweries and picobreweries.

But for now I’d argue for dividing the current definition of micros into two, with micros being breweries that produce between more than either 1,000 or 2,000 barrels per year and nanos being breweries that produce less than 1,000 or 2,000 each year, along with all of the other current parts of the definition. And since there are so few breweries between 10,000 and 15,000 barrles per year, perhaps the upper microbrewery/lower regional boundary should be changed to 10,000. The reason for doing this, I think, is in terms of not just size but the way in which these different size breweries function, are organized and approach the market, which I believe is radically different between all of the divisions. Thus it would make sense to start talking about them as separate parts of the beer industry, in much the same way we do now with the big breweries, regional breweries and microbreweries.

Anybody else have any thoughts or comments to add?