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It stands to reason that craft breweries, or at least many of them, do act like industries. Perhaps many breweries start out attempting to capture a national market rather than the local one and are comfortable taking a short term loss to eventually reach that point. If they assume that their product will be competitive on a national level, then they are going to locate in the place that makes the most sense from a business perspective. It is worth noting that places known for having a substantial amount of fresh water at their disposal, such as Maine, Washington, and Oregon, do also feature a great deal of craft breweries. Other factors to consider would be the local availability of hops and barley or the price of the necessary capital (particularly commercial real estate). A study of cost factors would be difficult and would require a thorough survey of brewers to be accurate. After all, even if a brewer lives next to a hops farm in Washington, that does not mean that they use local hops. They may brew with hops shipped from Germany of the Czech Republic. While many brewers may like the idea of buying local inputs, they probably will not do so if said inputs are not going to produce a beer that they can stand behind.