Wanna Brew?: To Nano or Not to Nano.

Nano Brewing in the 16th Century.

I recently came upon an article written by a pro brewer entitled On Beer and Brewing: So You Want To Be A Brewer by Henniker Brewing Head Brewer Chris Shea. I was poutily drawn by the similarity. Hey he's using my blog's name except he looks like can spell real good.

So I started reading and my heart sank. Here is a professional brewer, a guy who has achieved the dream we all want and he is telling me to not try. He says if you are over 30 ( I am), married (soon to be) and don't want to be a "janitor who gets free beer" (pretty sure that's not for  me, but give me a minute to think) then I should keep my day job.

I cried a few tears of angst, made a Grrrr face and then had an Ah Ha moment. (To be fair I had already had this Ah Ha moment, but saying it is a new Ah Ha moment makes this post better). You see being a Head Brewer may sound glamorous, but evidently it is real hard, repetitive, ground pounding kind of work.

Well I'm not adverse to hard work, but if Head Brewing is as slogging as Chris Shea says then do any of us want to do it (my hand is raised and the dog thinks I'm an idiot)? If you still say yes then I have some damntastic good news for you. You don't need to go to an expensive school (I still want to), "flip kegs for minimum wage" (I have much to my back's chagrin) or spend 30 years working for the man (wish someone had told me that when I was young) to brew beer that the public will enjoy.

You can go Nano.

Thanks to recently passed laws in many states, led by my home state of New Hampshire (Live Free or Die!), it is now much easier to open a small (nano) scale brewery and tasting room that allows you to step up your brewing efforts from simply experimenting on your friends and family to experimenting on unsuspecting tourists and townies. Huzzah, America is great.

So here's my advice (and my plan). Homebrew a lot (read, learn, brew, apprentice, nicely stalk brewers, torture some friends with your newest brewing experiment) until you're confident of your skills, save a bit of cash and find a place to brew, get a Nano license and open a tap room to expose your greatness to the public.

While the 80s and 90s are the real Golden Age of the Craft Brew Movement, there has never been a better time to become a pro brewer without becoming a keg flipping wage slave. This is what America is all about.

Wanna Brew?: Go Nano.

Happy Brewing,

Chris.

Image Courtesy of Wikipedia.