You can define craft beer in many ways — size, ownership, adjuncts — but here at CBB, we tend to define a craft brewery by the way it is owned. Oddly enough, brewing bold beer is only a part of that definition. To us, being a craft brewery means putting employees first and investing in people as much as profit margins. Being a craft brewery means supporting your local community, creating jobs, advocating charity work and being a stand-out corporate citizen.
But perhaps most important of all, being a craft brewery means embracing the big task of environmental stewardship. In fact, craft breweries around the nation are leading the charge for eco-friendly business practices, from water conservation and clean energy generation to recycling and reuse programs. To honor and educate the industry, we’ve called on some of those green-focused craft breweries (as well as some of our manufacturing friends) to share their secrets for running an eco-friendly brewery. We thank all of them for their support (especially the Craft Brew Alliance, which sent us three entries!). Because without a happy and healthy Mother Nature, none of us would get to enjoy good beer for very long.
Optimize your processes
Shaun O’Sullivan, co-founder,
21st Amendment Brewery (San Leandro, Calif.)
Our process and what we consume when producing our beer affects the sustainability of our operation and our overall footprint on our planet. Great care goes into what we use and what we spill. With our new San Leandro brewery and the quality equipment that we have purchased, this translates into being more efficient and getting the most out of what we put into our process. In the brewhouse, this is anything from grain handling and milling to the vessel automation sequencing and developed analytics that allow us to track data and optimize the system, increasing efficiencies and consuming less. Downstream with clean-in-place procedures, we recycle and reuse our process fluids. With California’s current drought conditions, having these systems in place allows us to consume less water. Packaging our beer in cans has a net gain over glass when taking into account that 80 percent of all aluminum cans are recycled. We use less energy in handling because the weight of cans allows us to haul more units per pallet than our glass counterparts. As a company, we consume; it’s the nature of our industry, but we are more and more efficient at using and spilling less with the overarching goal of being more sustainable.
Three Green Tips
Brett Kosmicki, cellar manager and head of Strike Force Green,
Founders Brewing Co. (Grand Rapids, Mich.)
Environmental sustainability has certainly been a topic receiving more discussion and even debate within the craft beer community over the last few years. We’d all like to save money, and in doing so, why not help out Mother Earth? High-quality, consistent raw materials are increasingly dependent on well-functioning ecosystems, and while not trying to incite a political discourse, we can all appreciate the role a healthy natural environment inherently plays. Though becoming “eco-friendly” can seem as daunting as creating the next hit IPA style, a few, well-focused efforts can add real savings to both your wallet and your planet.
Tip 1: Reducing electrical consumption needn’t be as involved or carry as much upfront cost as rooftop solar panel installation. Simply begin swapping old, incandescent light bulbs with highly efficient LEDs or compact fluorescents, and see your kWh consumption reduced significantly. Additionally, install motion sensors if light switches are inconveniently placed. Better yet, increase the amount of natural lighting in your brewery and taproom with larger, more frequent windows, skylights or install “light tubes” that focus sunlight!
Tip 2: Install a vapor condenser on your wort kettle stack to capture the steam created from the boil. Simply collect/direct the steam around a heat exchanger circulating ambient temperature water. This is an effective and efficient transfer of heat and could potentially supply all the hot water your plant requires. Founders cut natural gas usage by over 30 percent by doing this. Boiler stack economizers are a similar concept with less capital investment and control requirements.
Tip 3: Use conductivity measurements to control CIP solution strengths. Optimizing chemical concentrations can potentially reduce rinse water volumes required to neutralize effluent pH. pH strips or a meter can also be used to help confirm when rinsing has been successful. Additionally, “burst” rinsing fermenters and bbts, instead of a continuous rinse, can reduce water usage during CIP.
Partnering for a greener future
Julia Person, sustainability manager,
Widmer Brothers Brewery (Portland, Ore.)
Because of its intense water use and energy demands, craft brewing can have a significant impact on the environment. Greenhouse gas emissions and water scarcity will be two of the most important issues facing the craft brewing industry in the years to come. For Widmer Brothers, lessening that impact is both our responsibility and a business imperative — each gallon of water or therm of natural gas saved will go straight to our bottom line in real dollar savings.
In our pursuit to make beers in a more sustainable manner, we have partnered with some exceptional organizations. Alongside non-profit partner Oregon Wild, Widmer Brothers is a founding member of the newly launched Oregon Brewshed Alliance. Great beer begins with clean water, and the OBA recognizes the synergy between protecting the watersheds that make our delicious brews possible. The coalition of brewery members is working to advocate for protection of those resources, educating the beer drinking community and supporting brewers around leadership in conservation. Our other exceptional resource in Oregon are the forward-thinking breweries that we collaborate and share best practices with to help us become more responsible as an industry.
Variable frequency compressors
Greg Jakobek, marketing specialist,
Ingersoll Rand (Davidson, N.C.)
Sustainable production of craft beer is a commitment that should be looked at from a holistic perspective. This includes not only the raw materials used in the creation of beer, such as hops, but also in the power that supplies equipment in the process. Sometimes, the application of compressed air can be overlooked in the production process since it typically does not directly impact the outcome of the beer. However, as craft breweries grow and continue to expand their operations, the compressed air applied in keg washing, bottling, canning and moving product from one station to another becomes increasingly important because of how often it is used for these purposes.
In the world of air compressors, there is a type of rotary screw compressor that has variable speed technology. This is ideal for those who have variable demand. The Variable Frequency Drive, or VFD, controls the speed of the motor, allowing it to speed up and slow down based on the brewer’s needs. When using lots of air, the VFD controls the motor to run faster, producing more air to meet system demand. Likewise, when using less air, the VFD controls the motor to slow down as it reaches the target pressure. The benefit of running the motor slower is that it requires less power, optimizing the compressor and reducing energy consumption. Every kilowatt saved not only keeps money in the brewer’s pocket, but it’s also a step in the right direction for becoming more sustainable and socially responsible.
VFD control also minimizes the number of starts on the motor, which increases the motor life and prevents “short cycling” of the compressor, thereby instituting long-term efficiency. To top it off, many states currently offer rebates for businesses buying variable speed units, which accelerates the return on investment. In fact, there are a number of websites available that can help determine if a rebate is currently available in the state you reside, such as www.dsireusa.org.
Future supply challenges
Cheri Chastain, sustainability manager,
Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. (Chico, Calif.)
Our industry does face challenges around certain parts of our supply chain, especially looking out into the future. Sierra Nevada uses more whole-cone hops than most any other brewer and there are not enough organic hops or barley to supply our demand, let alone the whole craft brewing industry. To address challenges, there needs to be a brewery-specific effort around what we can control, combined with a larger industry-wide set of actions.
On the brewery-specific side, Sierra Nevada has an active water conservation task force looking at ways to use water more efficiently, and we’re powered in part by more than 10,000 individual solar panels that create more than 1.5 megawatts of AC electricity.
As an industry, we are working through the Brewers Association, which has a technical committee and a sustainability subcommittee. There are 11 breweries on the sustainability subcommittee that I am co-chairing, and we have all come together to better engage the industry on sustainability practices. Staying true to the “share-and-share alike” ethic, other brewing companies can learn about industry best practices through how-to manuals on topics like energy efficiency, water use and solid waste management that are available for free online. The group is also working on a green building manual, a wastewater-specific manual and an industry benchmarking study.
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Reducing BOD, picking the perfect brewhouse
Brock Wagner, founder/brewer,
Saint Arnold Brewing Co. (Houston)
This is an area that we are constantly focusing on from both an environmental and an economic standpoint. We are always working to make our brewing process more efficient. We are working with a large company to help Saint Arnold improve its wastewater disposal. Specifically, we are addressing the sanitation of our wastewater to reduce the BOD (Biological Oxygen Demand) content in the wastewater the brewery releases to the city of Houston. This summer, one of our brewers has been spending time at breweries in Colorado gathering best practices that we will use to reduce our water usage. As water becomes a more valuable resource, it will be increasingly important for craft brewers to be responsible about their usage of that limited resource, and we are making it a priority.
Looking at energy efficiency, one of the positive outcomes of having BrauKon refurbish the old brewhouse we imported from Germany when we moved to our current brewery was the energy efficiency we realized. BrauKon incorporated its energy-saving wort boiling system BrauKon SmartBoil into the brew kettle. It reduces the evaporation rate to two percent, which obviously reduces energy consumption.
Saint Arnold also has an ammonia refrigeration system. The system was already installed in the historic building that Saint Arnold acquired in 2008. The building had previously been used as a frozen food distribution facility for Houston Independent School District, so the cooling and refrigeration was fairly advanced. From an eco-friendly standpoint, ammonia-based refrigeration has a couple major of advantages over CFCs and HCFCs. First, it has an Ozone Depletion Potential rating of zero and a Global Warming Potential rating of zero. Second, it is up to 10 percent more efficient, so it requires less electricity. We modernized the system before moving in several years ago.
Sustainable hop farming
Staci Wallace, quality assurance and sustainability manager,
Crosby Hop Farm LLC (Woodburn, Ore.)
As a single commodity grower, processor and dealer, Crosby Hop Farm faces many complex challenges when it comes to being ecologically sustainable. Given the limitations of the current farming model [chemical dependent and lacking biodiversity] that our industry is dependent upon, we continue to strive for the best possible practices in every aspect of our operation. On the business side, we are working toward zero waste certification with company-wide, eco-friendly policies encompassing everything from recycling, composting, purchasing and printing to holding only zero waste events and installing solar panels.
At the farm level, Crosby Hop Farm is proud to be a Salmon-Safe grower. As part of this certification, we are required to minimize our impact on the watershed and the greater environment. We use the safest possible plant protection products in conjunction with a diligent Integrated Pest Management program that includes constant field scouting. Other non-chemical cultural practices include mechanical crowning and stripping, composting and cover cropping with plants that support beneficial bugs as well as the soil. A crucial component of any eco-friendly practice, and part of our Salmon-Safe commitment, is conserving biodiversity. At Crosby Hop Farm, we have more than 30 acres dedicated to biodiversity, including pollinator gardens, an oak prairie restoration site and undisturbed riparian habitat. While it is not currently feasible for us to grow organic hops, we do offer organic varieties from our partner growers.
We hope that as both a company and an industry, we can continue to advance sustainable farming practices until they become the norm. Increasing collaboration with the brewing industry is key to achieving that end. A growing commitment from leading brewers to source Salmon-Safe and organic hops helps move the industry in the right direction. By choosing highly disease-resistant hops ideal for the growing region, brewers can drive demand for more sustainably grown hops. We are confident that given that demand, the hop industry can raise production of highly disease-resistant varieties that have unique flavor and aroma characteristics as well.
The complete carbon footprint
Jason Ebel, co-founder,
Two Brothers Brewing Co. (Chicago)
As a brewer, I am very aware of the carbon footprint of our business, and we keep it in mind with everything we do at Two Brothers Brewing Co. Our team has always taken conscious steps to ensure we are making the least environmental impact possible — which means researching alternatives and possibly spending more money to find ecological substitutions and solutions in the brewing and packaging process. We focus our business on sustainable and organic practices, looking for ways to cut energy costs, recycle water and reuse on-site materials at our tap house and brewpub locations.
More specifically, Two Brothers takes steps to grow our business in an environmentally conscious and stable manner by using recyclable plastics and materials in packaging and using wind-powered energy. We also keep all of our equipment up to date and ensure it is energy efficient. Two Brothers is adamant about conserving water throughout the brewing process, including the use of an ultra-high-efficient boiler, which helps power the brewery and save energy. We also believe in using local ingredients, growing our own herbs and spices on our rooftop garden and buying our hops and barley from the Midwest, which cuts down on food travel miles. Lastly, a large majority of Two Brothers products are USA-made to ensure we use energy efficient, quality items.
Intelligent energy usage
Tobias Becher, senior engineer of process technology and R&D,
Ziemann International GmbH (Ludwigsburg, Germany)
Eco-friendly craft brewing particularly stands for production, which is largely independent of fossil fuels and is worthwhile under several aspects. Initially, it is economically viable, particularly viewed under the aspect of the predicted increase in energy prices due to shortages. Secondly, more and more governments and customers specifically request a CO2-footprint or resource consumption figures for their brewery. This influences not only current consumer purchasing behavior but also ensures site security in regard to construction and expansion projects. Thirdly, independence from fossil fuels enables maximum freedom for the production of beer. Boiling mash in batches, much longer boiling times or colder storage temperatures make economical and ecological sense. Especially in beer markets, where there is a significant trend away from “industrial” beers and towards beer specialties, this technological freedom is the key to success.
At the heart of an eco-friendly craft brewery is a central energy storage tank with two intelligent distribution circuits for the storage and transport medium for water. The high temperature cycle up to 120° C supplies the brewhouse processes. In this area of temperature, additional heat is required. This additional heat can be generated with either the burner of an existing steam generator or with renewable energy resources, for example with wood chips or biogas, obtained from the brewery wastewater. The heat from the atmospheric cycle with max. 95° C can be derived from all conceivable renewable resources due to the temperature level. Solar thermal energy will however play a central role. Furthermore, this cycle enables for the first time, the effective recovery of minimal energy flows such as atmospheric wort re-evaporation with Ziemann Diamond. One further option here is the generation of cold energy, which can be integrated with proven power/heat/cold-co-generation systems.
What’s your water usage ratio?
Bill Covaleski, brewmaster,
Victory Brewing Co. (Downingtown, Pa.)
Respect for natural resources is a foundation of Victory Brewing Co., as embodied in our Headwaters Ale and corresponding grant program. As such, we have endeavored to reduce our water consumption at all levels of our operations. In 2012, we set a target of 5:1 water to beer usage. At that time, we tracked at a 6-7:1 ratio in our Downingtown facility after multiple years of growth and concerted efforts toward conservation. We recently posted ratios averaging 4.93:1 over the last three months.
This ‘victory’ was obtained in several ways. One significant area of gain was in our brewhouse. We found a notable variance across brand recipes in terms residual moisture in the grain bed after lautering, which led us to coordinated trials, aimed at reducing water losses at this stage. We realized reductions in sparge water, chase water between vessels and rinse water after emptying by closely analyzing our usages.
Another large improvement was made in our CIP systems by incorporating grey water (recovered water) in our existing systems. Recovered rinse water used for caustic rinse out on one CIP is now used as the pre-rinse water for the next CIP. We are currently in the process of fine tuning our CIP recipes to recover water currently going to the drain and optimize our caustic rinse out based on caustic solution concentration. Future steps will include using rainwater harvesting for use in the plant for applications such as cooling tower feed water, boiler feed water, wash down hoses, bottle and can warmers, irrigation and toilets, proving what is ‘flushed’ is not always waste!
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Simple changes can add up to a huge impact
Julia Person, sustainability manager,
Redhook Brewery (Woodinville, Wash.; Portsmouth, N.H.)
At Redhook Brewery, we have a direct line of sight to the impact we can make — on our local community and environment — through our sustainability efforts. As one of the earliest pioneers in craft brewing, we’ve learned that simple improvements within our day-to-day operations add up to significant resource and dollar savings over the long-term. For example, when changing out conveyors in the bottle hall, we converted to a dry bottling line, which has resulted in 50,000 gallons of water [and sewer costs] saved annually. The switch also earned us a Safer Chemistry Champion award from the Washington Department of Ecology.
In our Portsmouth brewery, we are embarking on an innovative project to harness bio-power from our existing wastewater treatment plant. Breweries are ripe for closed-loop processes such as this, and we encourage all breweries to consider capturing waste heat, returning condensate, reusing rinse water and maximizing heat exchangers. And don’t forget about the nutrient-rich byproducts [yeast, spent grain, trub and any waste beer] that can be harnessed for power or feed for local cattle.
Controlling the boil
Gregg Norris, sales engineer,
GEA Brewery Systems (Kitzingen, Germany)
To say eco-friendly brewing is a priority for craft brewers is a monumental understatement. It’s simply synonymous with the revolution. At GEA, our design philosophy is no different and products like our COMPACT-STAR brewhouse has many features to prove it. Let’s take the wort kettle and internal boiler. By boiling smart, you can reduce boiling times and lower energy consumption by over 50 percent. Two phase boiling, like with our JETSTAR, enables the brewer to create a gentler, more homogeneous heat treatment of the wort for the majority of the boil time. “Simmer” boiling improves trub separation and increases overall wort quality while using much less steam. A win, win, win.
Only for a shorter period is the evaporative boiling phase required for the necessary removal of unwanted volatiles. We utilize a unique thermo-siphon design with a multilevel wort spreader to do this quickly and effectively. In addition, recovered heat from the kettle vapor stack can be stored and reused for wort heating, which further reduces the brewery’s carbon footprint and gas emissions. Other features to look for include lautering to extract yields exceeding 98 percent. By capturing so much of the extract, sewer BOD levels are almost nothing and you make more beer with less malt.
Furthermore, a balanced wort cooling system is instrumental in energy savings. By making up just the right amount of hot brewing water as the wort is cooled and transferred to the cellar, virtually no steam is required! Because of this, water usage in a COMPACT-STAR brewhouse has been seen as low as 1.3 hectoliters for every hectoliter of wort produced. Again, designed to use only those natural resources that are necessary.
From solar panels to packaging
Dean Coffey, brewmaster and co-founder,
Ale Asylum (Madison, Wis.)
No matter the size of your operation, you can implement sustainable brewery practices that can lower your carbon footprint. When we first opened in 2006, we practiced water conservation efforts, had our spent grain picked up by area farmers and installed an energy efficient calandria to heat the wort in our brew kettle in place of direct flame or a steam jacket. We continue these practices to present day.
In 2011, we underwent a large expansion that involved building a new brewery from the ground up. One of the major questions I continuously asked myself during this build out was, “How can I increase our conservation efforts as we expand and production increases?” The first idea we had involved capturing the energy given off in fermentation to heat the water used in our tasting room.
Another idea we had was to harness the frigid winter air to refrigerate our 3,500-square-foot walk-in cooler. From there, we purchased the single most efficient boiler offered on the market. Over the years, we have been able to implement additional sustainable methods that have an increased financial requirements but ultimately enhanced our bottom line over time.
Our most recent installation is a rooftop photovoltaic solar system that will reduce greenhouse emissions equal to that of an average passenger vehicle driving 7.13 million miles. This May, we started offering four of our brands in aluminum cans in cardboard wrap, which is the most earth-friendly way to package beer. Whether you’re a commercial brewer or homebrewer, no sustainable brewing practice is too small because a little will go a long way.
Ensure your arteries are as eco-friendly as possible
Barry Campbell, vice president of advertising and media relations,
Aquatherm (Medina, Ohio)
When considering the ideal attributes for a craft brewing operation’s piping infrastructure, functionality is obviously paramount. However, if you’re focused on running an environmentally friendly brewing operation, other important attributes are as well: longevity, durability, chemical inertness and a low environmental impact of production. Piping systems are like a brewing operation’s arteries, and your operation requires solid arteries delivering domestic water, compressed air, glycol from the chillers to the vats, product to the canning/bottling operation, compressed air, and heating/cooling to the facility. If these (and many other) pipelines aren’t operating efficiently, the beer will suffer.
So, it’s not surprising that in an industry where eco-friendly innovation runs rampant and successful technologies rapidly spread via word of mouth, brewers from Vancouver to Florida have come up with proven — and unique — ways of using polypropylene [PP] pipe systems as their arteries. Polypropylene has been around for several decades, but only recently has Aquatherm’s polypropylene-random [PP-R] been approved for domestic water, HVAC, compressed air and even food safe applications, among others.
Studies have shown that from raw material to installed end-product, PP piping systems require less energy to produce than comparable alternatives [no mining, raw PP is a byproduct of petroleum processing, thus making use of a readily available material]. Polypropylene is among the most environmentally friendly pressure-piping system available. The piping material is corrosion resistant, nontoxic, lead-free, fully recyclable, chemically inert, non-leaching and possesses a natural R-value of 1 or more depending on pipe size and wall thickness. The heat fusion method used to connect pipe and fitting results in a virtually leak-free bond that is performed without open flames, glues or the emission of VOCs.
Onsite, distributed water management systems
Matt Silver, CEO,
Cambrian Innovation (San Jose, Calif.)
Brewing is a water-intensive art. On average, breweries consume four to five gallons of water for each gallon of beer produced. That adds up to a lot of wastewater. Craft breweries often start up in local, small communities and rapidly outstrip the local treatment capacity as they grow. Cities are forced to hike up fees for wastewater discharge or, in some cases, to refuse the water, making breweries truck it elsewhere. On top of this, many breweries are located where water stress and scarcity limits production. Fees, regulations, scarcity and a desire to reduce their environmental impact all drive breweries to search for innovative solutions to their water challenges. Onsite, distributed wastewater treatment systems are that solution.
The secret to economic onsite water treatment is energy extraction. Some brewers may not realize that the high organic loading in brewery wastewater can actually be converted into biogas. Cambrian Innovation’s EcoVolt Reactor, for example, uses advanced biotechnology to recover clean electricity and clean heat from wastewater while cleaning up the water. The EcoVolt MBR is a final polishing step that allows for onsite water reuse. A complete EcoVolt Solution at Lagunitas Brewing Co. is generating 15 percent of the brewery’s electricity demand, 7 percent of the heat demand and cutting water consumption by 40 percent by enabling water reuse in non-beer processes. This project reduces Lagunitas’ carbon dioxide emissions by 1,600 metric tons, equivalent to planting 1,580 trees every year. Brewers looking for a sustainable and economic solution for water management should consider how a simple, distributed system on their site could cut their water and energy consumption and costs while increasing their production capacity.
Turn it off (or down)
Julia Person, sustainability manager,
Kona Brewing Co. (Kona, Hawaii)
On the Hawaiian Islands, it’s extremely important to be active stewards of our precious natural resources. At Kona Brewing Co., shrinking that carbon footprint often comes down to turning off or turning down anything we can. We use solar tubes to deliver natural light and occupancy sensors to ensure lights are only on when necessary. Compressed air is equipped with solenoid valves so it’s not being wasted when equipment is off. In the brewhouse, working with our QA folks to decrease boil time for even a few minutes results in energy savings batch after batch. The fans on our refrigeration system for cold storage are set to turn off when the area reaches the correct temperature. Our pub uses low-flow faucets and follows the tenets of the Green Restaurant Association certification to minimize our resource usage. It doesn’t always have to be big, sexy solar panels — we have those too, 990 to be exact, which generate close to 50 percent of our energy needs — to make an impact. Sometimes, simply remembering the old adage to “turn it off when you’re not using it” is enough to help a brewery operate in a more efficient and sustainable manner.
The forecasting and framework of eco-brewing
Ross Ackermann, founder & COO,
GP Analytics LLC (Seattle)
Eco-friendly brewing and operations are helped greatly by better analytics and accurate forecasting. The clarity data can give each department of a brewery will maximize efficient production, shipping and purchasing practices. As forecast and supply chain experts, we understand the demand at the consumer level for individual brands and SKUs. This knowledge can then build accurate production schedules [maximizing brewery efficiencies], shipping schedules [building full loads and minimizing unneeded travel], and help with raw material purchasing [buying only the ingredients or equipment necessary at the right time]. As an added benefit, forecasting can also minimize the amount of product that might [in the case of going out of code] need to be dumped and similarly minimize the chances of sending too little product and running out in the market.
Analytics have the ability to better utilize the tools you already have and better understand what your brewery will need to keep producing great beer into the future. As long-time professionals in the beer industry, we always recommend breweries invest in technologies that will return value to their business. With the right analytics, breweries can track and manage their input and output to see where they could be more efficient or how to better supply their distributors [and ultimately the consumer] with the beer they want. All breweries, especially eco-friendly ones, should value forecasting as the best barometer for measuring sustainability.
