How green is your beer?
Brewers are increasingly looking at ways to cut energy use, brew using alternative fuels, reduce water consumption, increase recycling rates, reduce packaging and use organic ingredients.
We’re not talking about that St. Patrick’s Day brew you swilled back in March at some faux Irish pub. We’re wondering how environmentally friendly is your beer?
(Kinsley Dey)
The environment is usually not the first thing we think of when we head to our local pub. But maybe it should be since a typical beer is around 95 percent water. Add to it the fact that it takes quite a bit of energy to brew beer and resources are consumed every step of the way—from harvesting hops and grains to packaging, shipping and chilling beer so it is ready for you to quench your thirst. When you stop and think about it, maybe Your Next Beer should be green.
But just what is a green beer? Like many other consumer products, that depends on a number of factors, including what is important to you. Brewers are increasingly looking at ways to cut energy use, brew using alternative fuels, reduce water consumption, increase recycling rates, reduce packaging and use organic ingredients.
One example of the trend is what is happening at Captured by Porches, a small craft brewery in St. Helens, OR, run by Dylan and Suzanne Goldsmith. The brewery got its name because homebrewer Dylan was banished to brew on the front porch after destroying two kitchen stoves while making beer. The company practices a variety of green brewing measures, including the use of returnable bottles, reusing water for cleaning, turning over spent grain to local farmers for use as livestock feed and sourcing local ingredients. While Captured by Porches Invasive Species IPA does use 100 percent organic materials, it’s more important to the Goldsmiths to buy local ingredients from farmers that practice sustainable agriculture.
We’re a society of waste,” says Suzanne Goldsmith. “It takes extra work to clean and set aside our bottles, but people who think the idea of environmentally responsible brewing is awesome buy our beer.”
Goldsmith notes that returnable bottles save energy and reduce the cost the brewery must charge consumers. “It’s amazing how many bottles do come back,” Goldsmith says. “People don’t realize it, but recycling one bottle takes enough energy to power a standard light bulb for a week. Returnables are more efficient.”
New Belgium Brewing in Fort Collins, CO, has taken an aggressive stance to reduce the brewery’s carbon footprint since 1999. The brewery uses a cogeneration process in treating wastewater to satisfy part of its energy needs and was the first brewer in the nation to tap into wind energy as a renewable power source, replacing coal-generated electricity. The changes cost the brewery $5 million, but positioned the company at the forefront of the green beer movement.
The move by brewers to alternative energy sources literally stretches from coast to coast. In New York, Brooklyn Brewery gets 100 percent of its electricity needs from wind power, while California’s Sierra Brewery is employing solar energy and fuel cells to cut its need for power from the grid.
