Defining Craft Breweries

Craft Brewery seems to be a catchall term for breweries that aren’t one of the major players such as Anheuser-Busch InBev or MillerCoors.  But what exactly do other descriptors mean?  We’re thinking Micro and Nano.

We found a convenient table in The Wall Street Journal.

Large is as above – Anheuser-Busch, etc.

Craft means fewer than six million barrels a year but it goes beyond production.  A Craft Brewery is 75% independently owned and uses traditional brewing methods.

A Regional Brewery makes 15,000 to 16,000 barrels a year.

A Micro Brewery makes less than 15,000 barrels, most sold off-site.  Brewpubs are in this category selling 25% or more on-site.

A Nano Brewery is smaller than a Micro and sometimes called “gypsy” brewers because they do not have their own equipment but use someone else’s.  The Nano is really small in the range of 100 barrels.

As of June 2014, there are 3,040 breweries in the United States.  Most Americans live within 10 miles of a local brewery.  Overall, beer is a $100 billion industry with Craft brewing accounting for $14.3 billion of that total.