Being a man and wearing small watches in 2026 remains mostly unacceptable even though the community discourse would make us think otherwise. For a man to wear a small watch is for many the horological equivalent of a mid-life crisis where you finally buy that fancy sports car you’ve been dreaming of for three decades or ditch your nine-to-five to live freely outdoors on the road—you have become a stranger to your closest friends and to your family. And in the past few years, brands worked hard to make the unacceptable acceptable and dared making smaller watches, fighting an uphill battle against the unforgiving online crowds. But as they’ve barely succeeded, influencers declared that the trend for smaller watches was dead. It is also mostly and only acceptable to wear smaller timepieces when they belong to the vintage category because we can easily justify it: brands designed more interesting watches before and they so happen to have come in smaller packages. It pretty much sums it up, doesnt’ it? 

A few years ago I became enamored with the Praesidus A-11 Type 44, a faithful recreation of a World War II-era 32mm pilot’s watch. The first photos I posted of it on Instagram scooped up all of the anti-small-watch-for-men comments you could ever imagine, but eventually folks changed their tune once they realized that men, brave men, wore it on the battlefields of Europe after having been jettisoned from airplanes in the middle of the night. Suddenly, once the narrative was set straight, they started to appreciate minute watches. However, looking globally at the state of the watch market today, the general feeling you may have is that it is still preferable for men—and undesirable for women—to wear larger timekeeping devices. Which is why many influencers rushed into saying that compact watches were no longer a thing as they were so glad to go back to the words they feel are appropriate to say and to the watches they feel more comfortable to wear. In other words, nothing appeared to have really changed.  

But screw it, folks. Let’s talk about how a 30mm Brew Metric Lite Silver & Black fully belongs onto a dude’s wrist as much as it does on a lady’s because…why the hell not? 

Specifications 

You might be wondering why did Vincent immediately focus on the fact that smaller watches, like the Brew, are also right for men? Because I’m a guy who appreciates smaller and larger watches and who believes—as I know you do too—that there is something for everybody in our hobby and in any type of horological machines. You might agree that a 34mm field watch makes sense just like a 45mm pilot makes sense, given their intended use-case scenarios, technology, and design. You might also agree that a three-hander doesn’t have to be larger than 36mm and that a tricompax chronograph’s ideal case diameter is 40mm in order for all the info on the dial to be digestible and for these watches to wear comfortably for its intended purpose—respectively, on the field for a long stretch of days and by the racetrack on the weekend. Moreover, and more importantly, there is merit for a brand to decide to make minute watches and to present them, as Brew did, simply as being their most compact watch and not a “lady’s watch.” 

If you look at Brew’s images you will see that the Metric Live Silver & Black is showcased on the wrist of a male human being because indeed, a man in 2026 can wear a 30mm modern timepiece like men could do without being prejudiced many decades ago. So speaking of dimensions, it is important to note that the Metric Lite has a rounded-rectangular case which measures 30mm across, 34mm lug-to-lug, 10.55mm thick, and comes with an 18mm lug width. Though the Metric has the looks of an integrated bracelet sports watch, it isn’t one, as the bracelet can easily be removed by way of quick-release spring-bars so that you can pair this compact and sporty timepiece with whatever strap you prefer. The bracelet is neat, you should know, as it tapers to 15.7mm but pops back to an 18.4mm width at the clasp. It is equipped with a double-trigger deployant clasp with four old-school holes of micro-adjustments. This means Brew also ignored the nasty side of the watch community once again by not opting for a tool-less micro-adjustment mechanism. 

Brands which make this decision do so for two main reasons: to keep the package light and comfortable to wear as classic clasps are lighter and generally more svelte than modern ones; they also chose these types of clasps to keep the cost of the watch down so that we can all afford to buy one. To that end, Brew also opted for a Miyota 6T27 caliber (4Hz/40 hours of power reserve,) a more recent model from the Japanese manufacturer which is described as being for small ladies automatic watches and which appears to be an entry-level caliber. Brew also opted for a push/pull crown and screwed-in case-back which nevertheless endow the Metric Lite with a reasonable 50 meters of water resistance. Furthermore, a flat piece of sapphire crystal on top and an unspecified crystal for the case-back which makes it possible for us to admire the micro-like nature of the smaller movement’s architecture. Lastly, applied markers which are lumed with BGW9 whilst the hands and additional printed lume plots are lumed with C3. 

By the way, the Brew Metric Lite Silver & Black retails for a reasonable $375 USD. 

Design

Whenever we speak of watches we like to speak of value. How much specs you get for your hard-earned cash, how much originality in design you will juice out of your next purchase. Here at Mainspring we believe that we cannot put a price tag on design as it is impossible to tally how many hours an idea brewed (the first and only pun today) into the artist’s mind before becoming an actual viable product. One rarely comes up with a precise idea for a design a la Dr. Emmett Brown. No, instead one sits on the idea, massages it in his or her mind, puts it down on paper (or into a design software or perhaps now AI?) before it takes shape and becomes a watch that can be spec’ed out, prototyped, and manufactured. All of this is to say that on design alone Brew can justify removing $375 USD from your bank account because it is visually sound. Brew, if you’re not familiar with the brand, has a certain aesthetic and has developed an expansive collection of rounded-rectangular everyday watches called the Metric. 

Certainly, if we were to scavenge the internet or simply ask ChatGPT for potential sources for inspiration of the Metric Lite, something or many somethings from the 1960s through the 1980s would come up. Perhaps an old Seiko looking at the mono-link design of the bracelet, or a vintage Mido looking at the rounded bezel. But what the Metric collection has become today is a Brew collection and rightfully so, as it is more than normal and acceptable to find inspiration in the past to design something today—and one would argue that 99% of watches we see now borrow something from somewhere else yesterday. And it is the fact that Brew tapped into vintage designs which makes it possible for the Metric Lite to be such a compelling horological machine in 2026 as the most important thing it took from the past is the recipe for creating timeless designs. To achieve such a feat a brand has to keep things simple whilst taking a few steps outside the beaten path which is something Brew is very good at. 

Practically speaking, this shows in how the dial and case were designed and subsequently manufactured. Looking at the visual core of the Metric Lite (the dial) we find a classical suite of faceted baton-shaped hour and minute hands, a needle seconds hand with a circular counter-balance, applied, chamfered, and fully polished hour markers with lume at their center, printed lumed dots outside of them, and a simple minute track printed on the rehaut. The polishing of all metallic elements is superb and infuses this compact dial with more personality than it should have given the silver-on-black monochromatic color scheme. The “silver” part of this model’s name not only stems from the handset and hour markers, but also from the radially brushed silver rehaut, a discreet color punctuation we also find on the mirror-like plateau framing the dial. The “black” portion comes from the deep black sterile dial whose only decoration is the brand’s coffee bean logo stamped right of the pinion. The dial of the Metric Lite is therefore classically timeless. 

Brew also designed the case and bracelet with the aforementioned timelessness in mind as they are both striking and appear to have been around for a few decades. The bracelet mono-link design truly hearkens back to the 1970s whilst the clasp anchors the Metric Lite into the 21st century with a firm hand as it is found on many modern timepieces. The case’s character, as you can tell, comes from the roundness of the bezel which was transposed into the mid-case and lugs which are made of gentle curves and soft edges. Therefore from the top we find the rounded-rectangular bezel whose shape is accentuated by vertically brushed sides shaped like cliffs, tall case flanks made of a horizontal brushing and complemented by polished chamfers, and hooded lugs which swallow the bracelet’s end-links. The Metric Lite is therefore more than a vintage-inspired timepiece as the case presents a subtle cascade of angles and chamfers which endow this model with a great deal of character which should command much more than the asking $375 USD. 

The Heart of the Matter

There are many ways to look at the Brew Metric Lite Silver & Black and many conclusions—or interesting insights—to draw from its study. There is the go-to value point-of-view of how much specs you get for the asking price, which here is a lot. There is also the less-traveled point-of-view of how much design you can squeeze out of this watch in this price bracket, which is also a lot looking at how the dial and case were laid out, profiled, and executed. And, finally, there is the who-should-wear-this-watch point-of-view and whether a human male can sport a 30mm elegant timepiece. And the answer is: yes, absolutely, anyday and everyday! Whoever believes the opposite is silly even though whoever thinks that is entitled to his or her opinion. But the point here is that Brew did something genius and superb when it decided to make the Metric Lite: it simply made a “compact” version of a watch and not a lady’s version of their regular Metric nor a lesser mechanically-inclined variant of their “normal watches.” 

In other words, the Brew Metric Lite Silver & Black is the epitome of the modern, smaller, elegant everyday timepiece which men and women can wear with pride and without compromising their personality and character. This is the type of watch we so badly have been in need of in the past few years because yes indeed, an everyday or elegant or sporty watch can be as small as 30mm and Brew proved it can be so. 

Conclusion

As mentioned much earlier, Brew’s Metric collection is expansive and there are so many models in it that the brand created a special branch for the Metric Lite. The Silver & Black is not the only model in this collection by the way as there are also a Mother-of-Pearl and a Gold & Black versions and all retail for the same price, $375 USD. As the stereotypical watch journalistic expression goes, I would be hard-pressed to find anything like the Brew Metric Lite on the market at this price point and that is a second victory the brand—and the watch community—should celebrate: affordable and attainable watches are becoming more and more rare like yet another species on the path to extinction and I for one am glad Brew can offer such wonderful horological creations for such a meager sum of money, all things considered. 

Thanks for reading.