The following editorial appeared Friday in the Olympian of Olympia.

A state-sanctioned group has just formed to market and promote the brews produced by the state’s craft breweries.

The beer commission joins about two dozen commodity commissions supported in this state by industry members and the state Department of Agriculture. With 84 microbreweries, Washington trails only Colorado and California in microbrewery activity.

Supporters of the beer commission are enthusiastic about what the commission can do to help breweries that produce less than 100,000 barrels of beer annually market their products.

“Some of the best beers in America are made in Washington state and, like Washington wine was 10, 20 years ago, really not recognized around the nation; we hope to change that,” said George Hancock, a commission member and founder of Pyramid Breweries Inc.

Not everyone in the craft industry is enamored with the new commission, which will raise money by levying a 10-cents-per-barrel fee on the first 10,000 barrels of a brewery’s production.

Each microbrewery takes pride in its unique products and might not want to be marketed as one, noted Lyle Morse, chief executive officer of Fish Brewing Co. in Olympia.

“We want to be known for our organic beers,” Morse said. “Throwing all this marketing information into one pot is not a place I want to be.”

And, he said, the surcharge on barrel production should be prorated so it doesn’t benefit the large producers at the expense of the small producers.

Sounds like the new beer commission has some internal fence-mending to do before it can move forward with a unified promotion campaign.