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Brew’s recent history has been marked by two distinct types of watch releases. There are watches that incorporate bold design choices in established platforms, like Metric Star from last year, or our own Metric Chrono Regulator Lumint limited edition. These releases take a distinct point of view on something that is familiar to Brew fans and watch enthusiasts more generally, and keep moving the ball forward on the brand’s aesthetic. Then there are more substantial releases that feel like the brand is reaching for greater heights, toying with an incrementally higher end product. The titanium Metric Chronograph, for instance, seemed like clear upping of the ante in terms of what the Brew catalog might look like across price points, materials, and so on, as did the first mechanical Metric when it was released almost two years ago. If you’ve spent any time at all talking to Brew founder Jonathan Ferrer, you know that he has no shortage of ideas for the brand, so there’s a prevailing sense that a watch that completely changes how we think about Brew could come at any time. The new Metric Manual Wind might be the best example of that to date.
It makes sense, in a lot of ways, that a watch like this would come now. This year marks Brew’s tenth anniversary, and the last decade (especially the last five years or so) have seen the brand grow at a clip rarely seen in the microbrand space. The Metric has proven to be a particularly durable platform for design innovations and experimentation, and so it’s an ideal watch to feature the brand’s first Swiss mechanical movement in a design that Brew calls their most high-end, premium watch to date.
First and foremost, this is a Metric, a watch that most enthusiasts by this point will be acquainted with in one form or another. The case is stainless steel and measures 36mm across and is just 8.5mm tall – the thinnest Brew yet. The dial comes in blue or black and features applied “mountain top” indices meant to reflect light in visually interesting ways, along with colorful accents that are the brand’s stock-in-trade.
What sets this watch apart and makes it what is surely the most refined Brew to date, however, is the movement. It’s a manually wound Sellita SW210 with 42 hours of power reserve. It’s been nicely decorated with the Brew wordmark on the mainplate as well as a circular motif that is pulled right from Brew’s dial design.
For a brand that has been using Japanese movements exclusively since its inception, the addition of a watch with a Swiss caliber is notable. One of the criticisms some levy against Brew and other microbrands, unfair as they undoubtedly are, is that the mass produced Seiko or Miyota movements used in their watches are somehow inferior, or holding them back. This, of course, is ridiculous, and an idea that we push back against at every opportunity at Worn & Wound. For a design oriented brand like Brew, the movement has never been the thrust of the project. But incorporating a manually wound Swiss caliber into the mix, a type of movement that has a certain romanticism built into it, Brew might be signalling not only that they’re capable of doing more and subverting expectations, but that they’re prepared to do it now.
The Metric Manual Wind will be made in small batches – Brew ways that 125 pieces in each dial color will be produced to start. The retail price has been set at $875. Brew
