Green Powered Breweries

Industries are growing greener, generally to reduce production costs. Breweries around the United States, for example are using sustainability to reach new market scopes and cut down costs.

In the western United States, Colorado is home to the New Belgium Brewing Company. The company has very green goals, which only seems natural considering its old logo, after all, was a bicycle wheel.  New Belgium's biggest commitment has been to wind energy, where it has made significant investments.

Best known for its "Fat Tire" amber ale, the company pays higher rates for wind-generated energy.  These rates negatively impacted employee's profit sharing program.  However, when the company asked the employees if it should scrap the wind power program, the answer was a resounding and unanimous, "no".

New Belgium also uses a methane capture system to satisfy about 10 percent of plant demand. Furthermore, the manufacturing plant also uses a closed-loop brew kettle that heats the sugars necessary in thin sheets, rather than all at once, to store heat and use less natural gas.

However, New Belgium Brewing Company's claim that it runs on renewable energy may be somewhat misleading. A former employee claims that the company was "greenwashing," and that its efforts were outshone by the disposable nature of the product and use of natural gas; additionally, he called for a returnable-bottle program, to which the company responded with a temporary restraining order.

Wind power has found its way into many a brewery—Brooklyn Brewery was the first building in New York City to be 100 percent wind-powered, as part of the WIND program which costs 2.5 cents more per kilowatt than standard electricity.

Methane recovery systems are another popular clean technology being used in larger breweries. Last year, Anheuser-Busch projected that one in seven beers it made would be produced by renewable energy at the end of 2009, due to biogas captured from a nearby landfill.  Bio-energy recovery systems in Texas and California are working to help the company reach its goal of running U.S. breweries on more than 15 percent renewable energy.

In Houston, bio-energy is expected to generate steam energy for the brewery, satisfying more than 55 percent of total fuel demand with clean biogas. Richard Wohlfarth, general manager of the Anheuser-Busch's Houston brewery, said that in addition to the biogas efforts, other conservation efforts have led to fuel reduction by 15 percent and electricity use by over five percent in the last year and a half

Anheuser-Busch's California brewery will also be including over 6 acres of photovoltaic arrays, providing 3 percent of the brewery's electricity needs in April. Additionally, the brewery recycles more than 99 percent of the solid waste it generates—inspired by the 19th century practice of feeding cattle brewers' grain.

Green brewing practices are spreading throughout North America.  For instance,  Steam Whistle Brewing, a Canadian-based company was named one of the greenest breweries in North America by eatdrinkbetter.com. This brewery's sustainable efforts are higlighted by company offices using a deep lake water cooling refrigeration system, and delivery trucks that run on biofuel.

Initially reading about sustainable brewing efforts, I presumed that most initiatives would be leaning towards solar thermal. Though few companies have pursued this, some have, including Portland's Lucky Labrador Brewing Company, which makes "Solar Flare Ale."

With the sustainability efforts breweries are making, it appears "green" beer might be more than an on Saint Patrick's Day occasion.

Photo courtesy of Flickr.