Eco Breweries

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

FungusBrew

Well-Known Member
Joined
Sep 27, 2009
Messages
164
Reaction score
2
Location
Illinois
One of my buddies just told me about this place...too cool. Veggie oil powered, and rain water utilization...wha?! :fro:

[ame]http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/tech/2009/10/02/wolf.green.beer.cnn[/ame]
 
I watched that video today and the amount of rain we had this year, I would have had to close the doors. Surely they use outside water for more than cleaning. Just seemed a little hokey to me. Marvelous idea for a homebrewer but did you see him scooping out the grain with a SNOW shovel. Crap, all my water from rain is in those grains.....Just saying.
 
Oh I don't think it would be your soul source for water, but it would come in handy for mashing, sparge, and cleaning, hell in the winter it would probably be cold enough to use it to chill. You'd be surprised how much water you use in pro-brewing, I work in a brewery that does 1600bbl a year and even though we are relatively small I'd say we uses at least twice or three times as much water as we put out in barrels. Anything would help and in the Valley of Oregon I bet you could cut your water bill in half if not more.
 
Oregon, Washington, maybe, but Georgia. I just don't buy it for a second. I suppose its cold filtered through red clay with windmills powering the pumps and geothermal energy boiling the wort right from the center of the earth. Sorry, the CNN cast has inspired me to try a different approach, but commercially......:D
 
New Belgium Brewing has a pretty intense eco-friendly thing going as well.
 
Please explain to me how to bottle and pressurize methane gas and I will self power all my heating needs. My gas to beer ratio has went up 10 fold, luckily, my SWMBO is sticking with me. Water for me, comes from the ground, about 85 feet deep, however, I like the idea of rainwater. Just gotta make a collector vessel with a screen to keep skeeters out.
 
Please explain to me how to bottle and pressurize methane gas and I will self power all my heating needs. My gas to beer ratio has went up 10 fold, luckily, my SWMBO is sticking with me. Water for me, comes from the ground, about 85 feet deep, however, I like the idea of rainwater. Just gotta make a collector vessel with a screen to keep skeeters out.

NBB gets 10% of its energy from methane gas that is produced in house. Not sure how exactly though.
 
Nice, now all I see is a bunch of beer drinkers farting into some sort of Austin Powers Mini Me Remover filling up a large balloon that looks like a long shaft connected to a pair of.........I get the idea, but its bull....
 
NBB gets 10% of its energy from methane gas that is produced in house. Not sure how exactly though.

I know several breweries compost their grains and other waste and collect the methane for use in mashing and boiling. Same concept as how they harvest it from landfills. I got a personal tour of Abita's digester a month back. Pretty cool system. It all makes sense from an economical and environmental aspect.

And to Selfsufficient: Excuse me if I misinterpreted your statement as I've had a few tonight, but if you are saying Georgia doesn't get enough rain compared to northwestern states then you are mistaken, excluding the recent drought. The southeast gets more rain than other parts of the country. I know here in BR we get 65 inches/year, compared with 30-40 in the NW. Now, cooling our rain - that's a whole different story. Again, not sure if that's what you meant. Text on-line is hard enough to interpret sober.

On a more serious note, I think as brewers we have a certain connection with the natural world. Except for an extremely limited list, most of our ingredients come from the earth. It takes water and a stable climate to grow our ingredients. We should do all that we can to help out and keep these grains and hops growing. Feel free to call me a hippy.
 
Back
Top