beer

Craft Brewers Revive Local Economies

- Adam Clare 1 Comment

A bunch of towns in the USA have had to close their manufacturing plants as free trade and the global economy transplant jobs elsewhere. This has left a lot of people unemployed and a lot of warehouse and manufacturing space open. The surplus of space has given a great opportunity to craft brewers whose sales are increasing in the ongoing American recession.

Craft brewers are using the space abandoned by the old manufactures and hiring people who lost their jobs. Instead of producing useless consumer goods they are now producing delicious beer. All the more reason to drink from your local brewery instead of the big beer conglomerates.

Many brewers large and small are already focused on making their infamously resource-intensive industry more sustainable. Vermont’s Magic Hat Brew Company recently installed a digester that produces natural gas from the organic waste products of beer production; even giant Anheuser-Busch captures waste heat from brewing and puts it to use. Many local brewers are community-minded; craft beer giant Samuel Adams rents its corporate headquarters at the old Haffenreffer Brewery in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts, a space they share with light industry, a couple of restaurants, artists’ studios, a fitness club, and a variety of local nonprofits.

“Shoe Town to Brew Town” offers an opportunity not only to celebrate such initiatives, but forge relationships between brewers and experts to leverage the unique qualities of the craft-beer industry. For Jimmy Carbone and his fellow craft-brew enthusiasts, beer pairs well with a menu that includes sustainability, jobs, and vibrant communities.

Read the full article here.

Thanks to Mirella over at Beerology.

Delicious Green Beer

- Adam Clare

I love Beau’s beer because it tastes good and today I found another reason to love it – it’s super green. Beau’s set out to make an environmentally friendly beer and did it with gusto.

Still, Beauchesne acknowledges that the skeptical non-investors were half right. “If you’re making the decision to go all-natural or organic based just on the bottom line, you probably shouldn’t be doing it,” he says. “But, to us, that was such an important part of what we wanted to be about.”

As for the market demand, Beauchesne and his father have had the last laugh. The company has grown to 45 employees from its initial five.

In 2010, Beau’s had about $4 million in revenue, and is earning a profit. There have already been a few expansions, and another one is planned next year, since the current facility has reached its full capacity of 1 million litres per year.

There have been some struggles along the way, Beauchesne admits. One of the biggest was going all-organic, which the brewery finally managed in 2008. At first, it was hard just to source the ingredients.

Read the rest of the article.

Brewery is Also a Power Plant

- Adam Clare

Here at Things Are Good we tend to like beer and we’re always happy to see the brewing process become more environmentally friendly. A smart inventor in the USA has found a way to convert a naturally occurring element of the brewing process and converts it into natural gas!

The brewery is Magic Hat and their motto is “Saving the earth, one beer at a time” – I can’t wait to try their beer.

The MIT-trained mechanical engineer has invented a patented device that turns brewery waste into natural gas that’s used to fuel the brewing process.

The anaerobic methane digester, installed last year at Magic Hat Brewing Co. in Vermont, extracts energy from the spent hops, barley and yeast left over from the brewing process — and it processes the plant’s wastewater. That saves the brewer on waste disposal and natural gas purchasing
The 42-foot tall structure, which cost about $4 million to build, sits in the back parking lot of Magic Hat’s brewery, where it came online last summer.

Fitch, 37, is CEO of PurposeEnergy, Inc., of Waltham, Mass., a renewable energy startup company whose lone product is the biphase orbicular bioreactor, which is 50 feet in diameter, holds 490,000 gallons of slurry and produces 200 cubic feet of biogas per minute.

Brewers big and small have wrestled with waste issues since the dawn of beer-making. In recent years, they’ve turned to recycling — both as a cost-saver and for environmental reasons.

Read the rest of the article.

Thanks Greg!

Beer and Games in Toronto

- Adam Clare

The game scene in Toronto is booming and this is a good thing. Games can bring people together in many aways, sometimes through online interaction, butI think the best connections come from playing games in person with other people. Indeed, a new cafe called Snakes and Lattes has opened in Toronto that caters to playing games with friends and strangers.

Now, a friend of Things Are Good is combining a scavenger hunt with beer. It’s to promote small breweries and encourage people to explore the streets of Toronto. Readers of this site will probably remember that we think beer is good. Just don’t drink too much in one sitting.

“This is an opportunity for people to show off their knowledge of both beer and Toronto in a fun and competitive way,” said Mirella Amato, Owner of Beerology. “While the focus of the event is on beer, it is also about discovering Toronto in a new light, making it a fun addition to Toronto Beer Week.”

“Urban adventures test skill as much as determination, and this is an event that will appeal to adults with a broad range of ages, knowledge, and interests, so there is something for everyone,” adds Rachel Young, Co-founder of Camaraderie. “Team work and collaboration are definitely encouraged.”

Here’s their facebook page.

Earth Friendly Beers

- Adam Clare 1 Comment

Beer is good and here at Things Are Good we do drink a lot of it. We also know that beer can be pretty intensive in water consumption and other resoruces, so I’m happy to share the news of eco-friendly brewers.

New Belgium
Located in Fort Collins, CO, right up the road from me, New Belgium may just be the pinnacle of eco-friendly beer brewing. In 1999, New Belgium became the largest private consumer of wind-powered electricity, and is an employee-owned business that prides itself on its environmental stewardship, adhering to the following creeds:

1. Lovingly care for the planet that sustains us.
2. Honor natural resources by closing the loops between waste and input.
3. Minimize the environmental impact of shipping our beer.
4. Reduce our dependence on coal-fired electricity.
5. Protect our precious Rocky Mountain water resources.
6. Focus our efforts on conservation and efficiency.
7. Support innovative technology.
8. Model joyful environmentalism through our commitment to relationships, continuous improvement, and the camaraderie and cheer of beer

They take full advantage of the more than 360 days of sunshine in Fort Collins by using UV blocking windows, sun-tubes, and light shelves; they use evaporative coolers, which condition their 55,000 square foot packaging hall with no compressors; and at their public events like their philanthropic bike festival, Tour de Fat, New Belgium celebrates bicycling as a viable form of alternative transport while a solar-powered stage provides sound for the day

We’ve looked at one of these breweries, Steam Whistle, before.

To see the rest of the brewers check out The Good Human.

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