> 2: a small quantity or number <a handful of people>

How can a person fit into a hand?

Alternatively, when were you given the power to decide what words should mean in a language you claim not to be familiar with?

I'm making two points, it's a poor choice of word, as it is conceptually poor, even bordering on nonsense. It's also clearly the wrong word as evidenced by the long list I provided.

English, like almost any natural language, is rich in metaphor. If that's not your cup of tea, fine. But it's probably worth learning to roll with the punches, just the same. Is this really the hill you want to die on?

It's also a shame that you and the other poster are focussing on this rather than the fact that the statement is plainly wrong. There are clearly more than a 'few' veggie-friendly brewers.

So what you've cited in support of your argument in fact militates pretty strongly against it, because a hundred or so breweries isn't a very large subset of all those in the UK - according to CAMRA, that's a total of 1424, which puts the fraction on your list somewhere around seven percent. That's a little strong for my taste, but still a good beer. It is also, one might dare say, a relative handful.

This is a better list, which puts the number at closer to 50% if you use the filter 'England' and then toggle between Vegan and Everything: http://www.barnivore.com/beer?vfilter=All

I think people reading this article will come away with a view that only 5 or 6 breweries in the UK are producing vegan friendly beer, and that' clearly not the case. Lots of breweries are doing it. It's probably fairer to say 1 in 2 beers are vegan friendly