While beer sales have been down, nationally, since the great recession, the craft beer industry has been going strong \u2013 growing 15 percent in 2011, according to the American Brewers’ Association.<\/p>\n
The newest kid on the block in craft beer is the “nanobrewery” \u2013 a very small scale commercial brewery that produces fewer than 2,000 barrels a year. To put that in context, the Brewers’ Association defines a microbrewery as producing fewer than 15,000 barrels a year, and a large brewery as exceeding 6 million*.\u00a0 Hess Brewing in California keeps a\u00a0list<\/a>\u00a0of nanobreweries and estimates there are about 93 in operation nationally \u2013 although that list is probably not comprehensive.\n\t\t