This article is not in reference to the St. Patrick’s tradition of dying your beer green, but instead a round of applause for the New Belgium Brewing company for its efforts to make their beer as eco-friendly as possible. A Popular Mechanics article describes their energy recycling process,

In the brew house, heat typically released as steam preheats incoming water. Temperature sensors automatically open windows to cool the building. Methane gas from an on-site wastewater treatment facility is piped to a generator, which produces enough electricity to cover 10 percent of the brewery’s needs. New Belgium purchases the remainder of its electricity from wind farms, and offsets some of its CO2 emissions by purchasing renewable energy credits on the Chicago Climate Exchange. But according to New Belgium’s sustainability specialist, Nicolas Theisen, there is always room for improvement. “We’re a partner in developing a process to use the carbon dioxide byproduct from fermentation to feed fast-growing algae in silo-shaped bioreactors,” he says. “The oil in the algae can be pressed to make biodiesel, and the rest can go into our waste treatment ponds to make methane.

The New Belgium Brewing company produces the delicious Fat Tire Ale which proudly features a bicycle on the front of the bottle. In support of cyclists everywhere, the company launched two a social action campaigns to encourage the use of bicycles in the daily commute. These two campaigns are “Team Wonder Bike” which asks members to take a pledge to ride their bicycle whenever possible, as well as the “Tour De Fat” a nationwide community cycling campaign to raise money for local charities throughout the Western United States. So if you love the earth, and you love beer, takepart and choose a brewery that strives and inspires social change for the betterment of all of us.

Add another item to the list of things only found in Amsterdam: a human powered, mobile pedal-pub.   The Fietscafe is giving carousers a new green, mostly clean, environmentally friendly way to explore the Dutch city aboard a pedal-powered vehicle equipped with kegs of beer for the swilling.

The Fietscafe seats 17 revelers, 10 of whom can pedal at once, leaving some room for musical chairs if someone gets tired.   According to their website, a sober driver is kept in tow to steer the contraption and a bartender is on board to look after the drinks on the often windy, bumpy and cobblestoned streets of Amsterdam.

For those of you wondering how all this is possible/legal, the answer is simply that the Dutch authorities have shown a remarkable level of tolerance throughout their history of which this is yet another example.   However, answers as to why someone would want to pedal around a city - even one as flat as Amsterdam - while trying to enjoy some delicious Dutch beer will be a little harder to come by.   You can catch a video clip of the Fietscafe below:

Read the rest of this entry »

Diageo might be the biggest companies that you’ve never heard of - they own and distribute Guinness, Johnnie Walker, Smirnoff, Red Stripe, Tanqueray, Dom Perignon…should I go on? Cause there’s more. But (almost) more important than the brands they make is the fact that Diageo has announced the building of a new bioenergy facility in Scotland’s largest distillery. From the press release:

The facility will for the first time integrate sustainable technologies – including anaerobic digestion and biomass conversion – on a commercial scale. It will be the largest single investment in renewable technology by a non-utility company in the UK and is set to reduce annual CO2 emissions at the site by approximately 56,000 tonnes (equivalent to taking 44,000 family cars off the road).

The distillery, once completed, will be able to turn spent wash - the refuse of the distilling process comprised of wheat, barley, yeast and water - into a fuel source to be reused at the plant instead of being shipped offsite.

Read the rest of this entry »

American brewing icon Anheuser-Busch has agreed to a $50 Billion takeover by Belgian based brewer InBev in a deal set to create the world’s largest beer maker. What sealed the deal in the month long negotiations between the two brewing giants was InBev raising its offer to $70.00 per share, 27% higher than Anheuser-Busch’s all time high stock price from 2002, and $5.00 per share higher than InBev’s initial offer reported on TakePart last month.

Although many American politicians including Democratic Presidential hopeful Barack Obama and Missouri Governor Matt Blunt have come out against the deal, personally I’m all for it. For one, as a matter of personal taste, Anheuser-Busch could use the help in crafting their brews from InBev, the same company that produces one of my favorite beers, Stella Artois. Secondly, the new company will be a truly international conglomerate. InBev itself was formed in a 2004 merger between Brazilian brewer AmBev and Belgian based Interbrew and although the company is based out of Leuven, Belgium, its management is made up of primarily Brazilian executives. So we’ll end up with America’s favorite beer, owned by a company operating out of Belgium and run by Brazilians - a perfect brew for a globalized, interdependent world.

Read the rest of this entry »

I think that most of us here can agree that the only thing better than a good beer is a good beer that lets us be environmentally conscious.   In that light, we can all be thrilled that Sapporo, the Japanese beer company, has announced that it will begin labeling one of its beers with carbon emissions information.   As reported in the Daily Yomiuri Online (via environmental leader):

The practice of calculating the amount of CO2 emitted through each stage of the production and disposal process–from production of ingredients to recycling of a package–is known as carbon footprinting. It is done to help objectively illustrate how much CO2 is emitted to encourage firms to try to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Read the rest of this entry »

Budweiser parent corporation Anheuser-Busch has received an acquisition offer Belgian Brewer InBev, makers of Stella Artois and Beck’s. The proposed sale has American politicians in an uproar over the prospect of losing the King of Beers and his court of cronies including Michelob, Busch, Rolling Rock and King Cobra to European control.

The unsolicited share offer from InBev promises $65.00 per share of Anheuser-Busch, well above the stock’s closing price of $58.35 at the end of trading yesterday. Wall Street reacted favorably to the bid, driving the share price up to $62.80 in after hours trading last night. But politicians were not so pleased, particularly in Anheuser-Busch’s home state of Missouri. The Show-Me State’s Governor Matt Blunt had this to say, “I am strongly opposed to the sale of Anheuser-Busch, and today’s offer to purchase the company is deeply troubling to me.” Blunt has directed the Missouri Department of Economic Development to see if there is a way to stop the deal from going through.

Read the rest of this entry »

This story may already be a few weeks old, but the fact that climate change could affect beer production cannot be overlooked. Jim Salinger is a scientist from New Zealand, where the sheep-to-person ratio has halved in the past 20 years, down to 10-to-1. I mention this only because New Zealand’s very own website states that the myth of the 20-to-1 ratio “is a commonly heard statement about New Zealand, frequently in anticipation of yet another sheep joke.” I, myself, know approximately only one sheep joke, but I’d be happy to hear plenty more. But anyway, Jim Salinger is a scientist in New Zealand and he has a dire prediction concerning the effects of global warming on beer production.

Read the rest of this entry »

Just in time for St. Patrick’s Day, two Australian breweries are promoting green beers. Unlike that “Erin Go Blagh!” stuff the pubs pour every March 17th, these eco-friendly ales from Fosters’ Cascade Green and Lion Nathan may pour brown but they’re brewed green, as The Sydney Morning Herald reports:

Cascade Green promises to offset all the greenhouse gas emissions associated with its production throughout the product’s life cycle, from picking the hops to delivering to hotels and the brand’s advertising.  

Lion Nathan touts its Barefoot Radler beer as Australia’s first carbon neutral brew on its website:

Barefoot Radler is our most environmentally friendly product yet, brewed by us to tread softly on the planet. Any greenhouse gas emissions we couldn’t get rid of have been completely offset: Barefoot Radler is the first beer product in Australia to be certified carbon neutral by the Department of Climate Change as part of the government’s Greenhouse Friendly program.

Read the rest of this entry »