Sustainability

For many breweries, spent grain represents a binary choice: Send it to the farm or throw it away. Yet new, sustainable disposal options are emerging, some at no cost and others with the potential to add revenue.

Once the purview of large-scale production plants, recovering the carbon dioxide produced during fermentation is increasingly viable for smaller craft breweries—and it’s increasingly popular, too.

In the hills of rural eastern Ohio, you won’t find Wooly Pig Farm Brewery by accident. Yet with an accomplished brewer who brews only unfiltered lager, sells it all on-site, and feeds spent grain to the hogs, there are plenty of reasons to find it on purpose.

The farming practices are still new and not always clearly defined, but supporters of regenerative agriculture make the case that it could lead to better grains, better beer, and happier farmers.

Going beyond barley into ancient grains can be a way to form stronger connections with local farmers, promote sustainable agriculture, and produce more distinctive beers.

If you build it, they will come... Some breweries are discovering that investing in chargers for electric vehicles can attract more customers while serving wider company goals.

The cofounder of Roadhouse Brewing in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, discusses growing with confidence, the challenges of integration, and how sustainability helps the bottom line.

There’s an exploratory movement among craft brewers to go beyond brewing with barley. The flavors coming out of this movement are delighting palates, helping to reduce environmental degradation, and promoting social justice.

It’s 2023, and the beer market and supply chain may never return to whatever “normal” once meant. Likewise, the market for brewhouse equipment has changed in significant ways. Whether you’re starting a brewery or making adjustments, here’s what to know.

The American Southwest is facing historic reductions in something that breweries use in great quantity: water. The situation is politically fraught, but there are ways that breweries can reduce their water use and make a difference.

The Lost Abbey and Port Brewing cofounder Tomme Arthur explains what it means to “grow down” for the long haul amid an increasingly competitive landscape for American brewers.

There are many varieties of hops with significantly lower environmental impact than some older, popular varieties—and more are on the way. But will brewers embrace them?

Whether we’re sucking it directly from the air or recapturing it from active fermentation, several factors—shortages, rising costs, and environmental concerns—are nudging more breweries away from dependence on external CO2 supply.

Brewers are dumping their blow-off buckets and reusing precious carbon dioxide rather than releasing it into the atmosphere. The benefits include cost savings, reducing greenhouse emissions—and, some say, better beer.

Environmental sustainability initiatives used to be novel, but now they are becoming the cost of doing business. What’s more, the next generation of beer drinkers is likely to demand more.

Produced and made freely available by New Belgium Brewing in Colorado, the new resource is meant to help breweries of all sizes make plans to measure and reduce their carbon footprints.

When everything you need to make beer is more than 2,000 miles away, you learn to adapt. Here, the founder of Maui Brewing talks with John Holl about sustainability, canned cocktails, and the need to diversify.

Breweries around the country are implementing programs, technology, and initiatives that aim to make their businesses more sustainable and to have a positive environmental impact.