Nanobrewery Love

515 Brewing in DSM. Wife and I went there Saturday night. Hopititus C and Dart Dodger were fantastic. She had a home brewed cider that was awsome as well. If you get a chance, try it!

 

NH love goes to -

Throwback brewery - Throwback is a small, inspired brewery dedicated to crafting delicious, farm-fresh beers from local ingredients. Our vision at Throwback is to acquire 100% of our ingredients (such as hops, wheat, barley, fruit, and spices) from within 200 miles of the brewery. Currently, we are about 70 to 90% of the way there (depending on the beer) – which is really unique for the industry and something we are quite proud of.
Throwback seeks to conduct business in ways that are healthier for the environment:

• All of our spent grain is used by local farmers as feed for their livestock.
• We encourage our customers to purchase our reusable growlers and to recycle our bottles.
• We save the water used to cool the hopped wort for brewing the next day.

Earth Eagle - We brew unique hopped ales popularly known as beer, as well as mysterious un-hopped ales called gruit (groot). We sometimes add herbs to our beer and occasionally we add hops to our gruits. We sometimes brew with fruit and have also employed meat in our creations. We use fresh, local, in-season ingredients when available. Sometimes we brew to a particular style, typically Belgian, British, American, and other times we concoct our own.

 

One that I visited this year that seemed like they still had a bit of growing to be "there", but was good, was Northport Brewing in Northport, MI. I'm just thankful more than anything they're there, as I've always wondered why something like that hadn't been started in the Leelanau area.

 

Wow never heard the term nanobrewery before. I guess another catchphrase invented recently.

Ok I'll bite regardless. Here in NJ I guess both Carton and Kane would qualify. Both make outstanding stuff and they're both very small.

 

I don't consider nano's places that do expansions to 20bbl systems with 200+ bbl of fermentation space in a production space - just my opinion of course.

 

Angry Erik Brewing in Lafayette, NJ. God, do I love their stout!

 

Cervecería de MateVeza in San Francisco. Properly small but cranking out pretty tasty brew and delicious empenadas.

 

The term's been kicking around for a number of years now, and is loosely defined but generally it is considered to refer to a production brewery that is brewing batches of 3 barrel or less. Kane and Carton have, respectively, 15 bbl. and 20 bbl. brewhouses.

The "3 bbl. or under" definition is used by the Hess Brewing Co's "Nanobrewery List" website, considered to be best source keeping track of the tiny production breweries. Others use " <4 bbl. " or a yearly barrelage of 2,000 bbl. or under, etc.

 

I don't know man, but check it out! Open for growler fills and tastings Saturday and Sundays, noon to 5 if I am not mistaken. Live music Friday nights. 12 Crane St Soutbridge.

And I am guessing you are from Athol (call it an educated guess)? That's where my family is from. Well my pops half anyway. Some still live there. Reason I inquire is because NOBODY knows about Athol MA unless you're from around there.

 

Beer'd Brewing in Stonington CT and Bog Iron in Norton MA both make some really tasty beers.

 

If you're ever in Denver, hit Wit's End; best nano in town. Though I believe they've moved up to 7 bbl system I think they are still comfortably in the nano class.

 

Well, send some of that dank ass shit to Buffalo Ny. I am sure we will appreciate it too!!!

 

I just had some of their stuff at BCTC. It was all really good.

 

2K bbl a year is quite a bit. That would probably include most of the breweries in the country, don't ya think? A brewery near me, North Fork, has a 3bbl system, brews 3-4 times a week, sells all the beer they make (around 600 bbl/year), and have no room (or desire) to expand. There's no way I'd ever think of them as "Nano". Another brewery near me, Kulshan, is 2-1/2 years old, and brewed just over 2k bbl last year. I never, from the day they opened, thought of them as Nano.

 

I think New Hampshire actually has a legal definition and separate "nanobrewery" license that uses the 2000 bbl limit.
Edit- NH Law Give Nanobreweries a Larger Standing

But, as I noted, there's no "official" (even a frequently questioned one, like the Brewers Association's spec's for "micro", "regional", "small" and "large", etc) definition. It wouldn't be too hard for a full-time, several employee, ambitious 3 barrel nano to brew 2000 barrels a year (assuming they have the fermenting capacity, too)- 3 brews a day, ~250 working days = over 2k bbl.

Yeah, I usually think one should segment breweries by yearly barrelage but, in the case of "nano" - the brew size makes more sense. As you note, there are many breweries with larger-than-nano brewhouses that do only brew and sell 2000 bbl.

 

In MI there were 21 breweries out of 114 that were >2000 bbls in 2013. None of the 56 brewpubs exceeded 2000 bbl.
Edit - I can't think of any that made >2000 that are nanos.
Source was the May-June 2014 issue here.

 

Yeah, I'd think the "nano" term only applies (or should only apply) to production breweries, not brewpubs. I agree with beertunes that it makes more sense to define "nanobrewery" by brew size, since so many "microbreweries" ("<15k" using the B.A.'s definition) are selling under 2000 bbl/yr.

 

I wasn't real clear was I? My points were:

Not all that many make >2000 bbl year, even with big brewhouses. It would we a huge amount of work to make 2000 bbl on a 3 bbl system. It could be done, but after a year of that I would be looking for a bigger system.

Just was pointing out that the largest brewpubs in MI make about 1500+ bbls year, even with >7bbl system. That is a lot of beer to sell over the bar.

The size definition has always made sense. Nanos are the same size as some homebrewings systems. I knew a guy with a 1.5 bbl system in his basement. He has now gone pro with a 7 bbl brewery.

 

Scratch Brewing in Ava, IL - Like a hippie commune, but with great beer.
http://scratchbeer.com/