The Other Kind of Green Beer

From the Rocky Mountains to Japan and Australia, beer-brewing companies are adopting practices that aim to reduce waste, as well as energy and water use, according to an Environmental News Network report.

In Colorado, New Belgium Brewery uses wind power and harnesses methane gas pumped from its water treatment facility to meet all of its electricity needs, while Odell Brewing Company recycles everything it possibly can — including water, spent grain, office paper and ink — and uses biofuels in all its vehicles.

Brewing giant Coors sells more than 600 million pounds of solid waste to local farmers for feed, converts waste beer into alcohol-based biofuel for vehicles, and recycles its waste water.

On the coasts, the Sierra Nevada Brewing Company in California uses fuel cells to reduce emissions, while the New York City’s Brooklyn Brewery runs on wind power.

Japan’s Asahi and Sapporo breweries, meanwhile, are supporting projects to produce and promote second-generation biofuels that don’t compete with food production needs.

In Australia, Foster’s Brewing Company is working with the University of Queensland to generate electricity from microbes digesting brewery waste.

–Julia Hengst/newsdesk.org

Sources:

“Green Beer”
Environmental News Network, July 2, 2008

“Fly the Cellulose Skies: Will Second-Generation Biofuels Take Off?”
Newsdesk.org, July 9, 2008

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