As Craft Brewers Grow, So Does their Environmental Impact.

Many Boulder County craft-beer drinkers are familiar with the four main ingredients of their delicious drink of choice: Barley, water, hops and yeast. But there are other, often invisible ingredients that go into every barrel.

Electricity, natural gas, wastewater, shrink wrap, grain bags and other materials aren’t as obvious, but are just as necessary for creating the diverse array of craft beer Boulder County consumers have come to love.

From sours to imperial stouts, the recipes and steps vary for each individual beer, but the overall process is much the same — and it’s very energy and resource intensive.

Though sustainability isn’t a new concept for Boulder County breweries or others around the country, the amount of energy and resources being used in craft beer production has come into sharper focus in recent years.

The Brewers Association, a Boulder-based organization representing more than 9,000 breweries, suppliers, retailers, wholesalers and individuals, recently launched a new initiative to help breweries track their energy use over time.

The initiative includes a benchmarking tool that is designed to allow breweries to track their own progress year-over-year, and to compare their operations to other similarly sized breweries.

Breweries who participate can log in to a personalized dashboard to view metrics for electricity, fuel, spent grain, water, wastewater, waste disposal and recycling.

Since 2012, the number of breweries springing up across the country has nearly doubled. While the boom may be slowing down slightly in 2017, that exponential growth means craft beer is using more water, more electricity and more materials than ever before.

With the number of U.S. breweries at an all-time high of 5,301, every environmentally friendly improvement adds up, says Chuck Skypeck, technical brewing projects manager for the Brewers Association.

“What we preach is, ‘Just get better,'” said Skypeck. “Everybody can make a difference.”

The association first established a sustainability subcommittee in 2013. Along with the sustainability benchmarking tool, which started as a pilot project with a handful of breweries in 2014 and launched fully in 2015, the Brewers Association has also produced five manuals that breweries can use to help inform their sustainability efforts.

“We were hearing from our members that this was a priority for them, for us to help them and provide them resources in this area,” Skypeck said.

Of course, not all breweries are the same size and not everyone is going to be able to make the same investments in sustainability — and that’s OK, he said.

“If you’re a small brewer, you can’t afford a solar array on top of your brewery — it’s just not practical,” Skypeck said. “But anybody’s efforts, whether it’s replacing a compressor with a new, more energy-efficient compressor or putting in LED lighting everywhere, that makes a difference. There’s lots of things you can do as a small brewer to make your operation more efficient.”

While research has found that consumers — particularly millennials — have made sustainability a priority when they shop, they’re not the main driver behind the renewed focus on sustainability among craft brewers.
Primarily, being sustainable also means being more efficient — which translates into saving money.

To read the full story, visit http://www.dailycamera.com/boulder-business/ci_31374288/craft-brewers-grow-so-does-their-environmental-impact.

Sponsor