Now, however, “microbrewery” is what everyone who doesn’t read the beer press calls a “craft brewery.” Victory is a microbrewery, New Belgium is a microbrewery, Boston Beer is a microbrewery…with a truly huge facility outside of Allentown, PA. So what’s microbrewery really mean anymore?

Some geeks will tell you, indignantly, that a “microbrewery” is one that makes less than 15,000 barrels a year. That “definition” was thought up back in the days when no one really thought any of the new brewers would go over that. It wasn’t handed down on a stone tablet from the Beer Gods. It wasn’t really about size, it was about difference.

Nanobrewery, on the other hand, is definitely about size, and is going to remain so. I’m not talking about an ambitious homebrewer (I think they call that a “picobrewery”), but a commercial brewer who’s brewing less than three barrels at a time (roughly; that wasn’t handed down by the Beer Gods either). Three of these opened within 75 miles of each other in northeast Pennsylvania, all in the past two years.

The first to open, just about two years ago, was One Guy Brewing, now named Berwick Brewing. It’s the biggest of the three, and not just because of the gigantic size of the brewkettle — 60 gallons, just about the size of the first of the new “microbreweries,” New Albion — but because it supplies a thriving taproom and beer garden. The building is actually huge, an old bread bakery, and Guy Hagner and Tom Clark have had to carve smaller areas out of it.

Hagner had another brewery project go south on him — Franconia Brewing — and wound up in personal bankruptcy, over $1 million in debt. With the help of Clark, an old friend in the business, he put together this project for under $80,000, taproom and all, with help from friends (my kids and I put in a couple days of painting and scraping). Nanobrewing was a way to get back into his passion without the huge financial risks. Clark decided to get more involved as a partner, and the former one-man operation is growing, a full-time concern. Berwick Brewing is thriving, and may leave the nano realm soon…but slowly.

The newest of the three is Breaker Brewing, which opened in early 2009 in Chris Miller’s garage in Plains, tucked away off the north end of Wilkes-Barre. This is the nanobrewery as escape plan: start small, keep your day job, and build something to the point where it can support itself (and you). Miller and Mark Lehman are betting low on a 1.5 barrel system around some 55 gallon stainless steel drums: “No kit, no plans, and no loans,” said Chris.

The guys learned a lot about metalwork while working at a VW garage in the 1990s. “That’s where we learned, ‘No fear,’” Mark said. “You need something? Just do it. Someone says you can’t? Just do it.” That’s probably why Breaker is in 17 bars in the Wyoming Valley, and Plains Township is hoping they stick around when they expand out of the garage. That’s on the agenda: they’re looking at 100 gallon tanks, and someplace to put them. They still have their day jobs (engineers with Frontier Communications), but they’re brewing, kegging, and hustling beer: no fear.

The third nanobrewery is more like a self-supporting hobby. Copper Kettle Brewing is the one barrel brainchild of Harold Kerlin and Russ Eisenhuth. I talked to Harold at Bucknell University, where he and Russ both work as support staff. “We were making beer,” he said, “and people wanted to buy it. When we won the Sam Adams Longshot contest in the Northeast region with our Potbelly Porter, we started thinking about going into business.”

They built the brewery with kettles they found in a scrapyard, and got their license in May of 2008. The fermenters are food-grade plastic, Russ’s wife designed the labels. They bottle all their beer (“There’s just not enough beer to keg,” Harold said), unfiltered and bottle-conditioned, and sell all of it in three locations, all within 15 miles. Will they expand? “Eventually,” Harold said. “We could piece together a 3-bbl. system and a small bottling line, but there’s not a lot of money.” Not when you’re only making 40 barrels a year!

Three businesses may not make a significant trend. But Chris Miller says he gets e-mails every week from guys who want to start their own nanobrewery (specific questions are fine, he said, but don’t ask for a whole plan!). Whether they start — and whether they remain in the nano-category — will tell if this is an idea with legs, or just a curiosity.