When Going Green; Your Beer Matters

I was originally going to write a series of posts for Green Week.  Earth Day is this Friday after all, but reconfiguring this site took too much time.  I want you to sit back and drink a beer.  Think about where it comes from.  I want you to think about the grains and the hops.  Where were they grown?  What was the farmer like?  How were they shipped?  Are they fresh hops from New Zealand flown overnight to an American brewery instead of pelletized and shipped by sea?  Think of the brewery.  Think of the jobs, and the environment.  You know brewing create waste right?  What did the brewery do with the spent grain?  Did they sell it to a farmer or give it away or hell, maybe sent it to a landfill?  The water, oh the water that goes into brewing.  Some estimates say for each barrel of beer (about 32 gallons) 1,500 gallons of water are used.  Why?  Well there is the rinsing, sanitizing and well I can go on and on.  Did that beer your drinking come from an environmentally friendly brewery?  What about the packaging?  Are you drinking it from a reusable keg? a growler? can? bottle?

Finally, there is distance.  Where are you buying the beer from?  Did they truck it to you?  Maybe it was loaded on a train shipped cross-country and then trucked to your local store, or did you go to the local brewery and have them fill your reusable growler?

I hope you thought about that beer.  I know you will not always purchase the most Earth friendly beer, I don’t.  When you just need any beer think about where it comes from, even small differences add up.

Tags: Environment