Something's Brewing Close to Home

The do-it-yourself ethos has taken hold in America — this time powered as much by necessity (the battered economy) as by any casual embrace of the storied American self-reliance. It’s maybe nowhere more evident than in a new and re-emerging form of the DIY philosophy according to home brewers.

For years, microbrewers — independent beer-brewing operations whose threshold of production is less than 15,000 barrels a year — defined the small-batch experience. More recently, though, the drive for local identities and products, and a reawakening of Americans’ sense of the neighborhood as resource, have led to the rise of nanobreweries, run by a handful of people operating out of very limited neighborhood spaces on a very limited budget.

Unlike microbreweries, which are the thriving results of business models, nanobreweries are more entrepreneurial, with their creators doing it either as a high-profile hobby or as a stepping-stone to creating a bigger company. Either way, nanobrewing reflects the impact of neighborhoods, as these mavericks create a brew — and a following — one trench drain, one fermentation tank at a time.

Heather McClung, one of the owners of Seattle’s Schooner Exact brewery, grasps the neighborhood aspect of the nanobrew concept. “Historically, people used to brew for their household, or their communities. This is seen in the architecture of homes, when they built their doors just wide enough for the community brewing kettle to fit through. Nanobreweries are taking brewing back to its historical context by brewing small and brewing for their community. … How much more local can you get, other than to do it yourself?”

For Donavan Hall, the Long Island-based author of “The Beer Hall Guide to Long Island,” it’s something you do out of love.

"The nanobrewery concept allows one or a few good craft brewers to spend a few weekends a month brewing batches of beer that can be sold to pubs in their communities,” Hall, a full-time physicist, told Newsday in March. “The model isn't one that focuses on eventual growth. The nanobrewer isn't going to quit his day job. They are brewing because they love the process and want to share the results with the people in their neighborhoods,” Hall said in a posting on his The Beer Hall blog.

Nanobrewing, like its bigger cousin microbrewing, is one of the results of the steady appeal for craft-brewed beers, a beneficiary of the home brewing movement that gained momentum in 1979, when President Jimmy Carter signed the Cranston Act, legalizing home brewing for the first time since Prohibition.

Schooner Exact shows what’s possible. McClung said the company began in June 2006 as a whim she shared with husband Matt McClung and close friend Marcus Connery. “Matt and I were about to be married, so we were ramping up our homebrewing in order to make beer for the wedding,” Heather McClung said by e-mail. “We ran across a pilot system for sale so Matt, Marcus and I decided to purchase it for $1,500. When Matt and Marcus were returning from picking up the system, they looked at each other and said, ‘wouldn’t this be cool if we decided to go pro?’ Hence, Schooner Exact was born.”

From such meager beginnings is a dream born; Schooner Exact has expanded from a storage-shed-sized operation to one that now sells its product throughout Puget Sound. For McClung, however, it’s important that the company’s growth stays rooted in the community. “By choosing to drink local, one can contribute to a greater sense of community as well as being a green, sustainable approach,” she said. “If you purchase a local beer, the profits of that purchase go back into the community — and the cycle begins again.”

—   Michael E. Ross

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