At the Nov. 6 Special Town Meeting, we voted to allow microbreweries, micro-cideries, micro-meaderies, and micro-wineries that can each produce up to 5,000 31-gallon barrels of product per year, and to allow such “micros” to have tasting rooms, to host events, and to sell retail. Since these are all unfortified alcoholic beverages, I assume the intent is not to permit micro-porteries or micro-sherryeries, a wise decision, as such facilities can lead to civic instability, due to the well-documented hooliganism of habitual port and sherry drinkers.
How much is 5,000 31-gallon barrels, in laypersons’ terms? It’s 155,000 gallons. The table at the right shows the annual and weekly breakdown of this number into familiar sizes.
Five thousand, three hundred six-packs per week is two or so for every Harvard household: almost two bottles per day, suggesting reliance on micro-tourism to sustain and grow this nascent industry. If commercial marijuana growing is allowed in town as well, we might become a destination for such seekers of these age-old intoxicants, perhaps spawning a host of ancillary businesses. (I have already registered the name “Bare Hill Bongs.”)
We must lean on each other as we stumble forward together into the uncertain future.
Billy Salter
Elm Street
