Slate Article on the "green"-ness of Wine & Beer

CornyKegs 728
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Picobrew

Picobrew

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http://www.slate.com/id/2229095/

A recent carbon footprint analysis of Fat Tire Amber Ale highlights a few other areas that deserve attention. Producing and assembling the ingredients—malt, hops, water, and fizzy CO2 bubbles—created 678 grams of carbon dioxide equivalent, or about 21 percent of the total footprint for a bottled six-pack. A significant chunk of that—244 grams—comes from the production of synthetic fertilizers for the barley and related soil emissions, so the authors suggest that switching to organic barley could make a considerable impact. (Keep in mind, though, that making a special car trip to purchase hard-to-find, earth-friendly brews might negate any upstream CO2 savings.) In Denmark, one company now brews with unmalted barley, which they claim reduces its beer's emissions by 8 percent.

Refrigeration, both in the store and at home, represented another third of Fat Tire's footprint. All things being equal, then, beers that don't need to be refrigerated—like strong beers and standard ales—should have a lower footprint than lighter beers that are best kept cold.
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I'd be much happier to give up my car than my beer.

But with respect to being more mindful, there are a lot of breweries out there looking to be more efficient.

I just got back from the Anderson Valley brewery in Boontville CA. and did the brewery tour, They have quite an establishment there, 60% of there energy comes from solar, and they recycle 100% of there waste water. As well they are starting to move to Cans, which I feel is a far superior way to distribute beer, but is much more energy efficient.

I read this too, Fuel from Old beer and wine

It sounds like Karl Strauss down here I looking to supply these micro fuelers down here.
 
I'm looking into making seltzer with my out-gassed CO2 from fermentation to shrink my footprint. I like that some breweries are gassing their excess into algae filled tubes for scrubbing as well. Algae can be an excellent scrubber! I don't ever want the environmentalists to start shouting at the breweries. We have a hard enough time as is with alcohol laws and such that extra negative attention wouldn't be a good thing. I bet we are on the list though.
 
A 37 page report describing the carbon footprint of fire tire?!?! How much carbon footprint does it take to create a 37 page carbon footprint analysis?
 
gxm said:
Hopworks here in Portland has gone whole hog green -
http://www.hopworksbeer.com/going_green.php

I really like the first two items on the list:
1. Biodiesel fired brew kettle using HUB fryer oil
2. Waste pizza oven heat captured to heat brewing water

And the beer is pretty tasty too :mug:
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werd.

Last time I was in Portland I visited a bunch of breweries. I went to Hopworks twice. And I bought one of their mugs.
 
If you're using carbon footprint to determine whether to drink beer or wine, you're probably better off drinking some water from the tap because what you drink isn't very important to you to begin with.
 
Doesn't New Belgium have it's own waste treatment plant on site?

I'm not so convinced that organic barley is that much greener. It takes a lot more diesel to plow the fields than to spray them with nitrogen and there is a lot of carbon released when turning over the soil. I haven't seen any stats either way but I'm not willing to blindly believe that the organic barley is inherently greener.
 
Tonedef131 said:
Doesn't New Belgium have it's own waste treatment plant on site?

I'm not so convinced that organic barley is that much greener. It takes a lot more diesel to plow the fields than to spray them with nitrogen and there is a lot of carbon released when turning over the soil. I haven't seen any stats either way but I'm not willing to blindly believe that the organic barley is inherently greener.
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Yeah, I've heard some of the same things about organic farming, plus you get less yield per acre so you are using up more land to grow organic barley, and moving your equipment through more fields for the same amount.
 
Not to sound like a broken record, but I've heard the exact same thing. There are reasons why farming is the way it is now. I've also heard that going back to all orgainic farming would just bring back the dust bowl in the midwest. I think there are some crops that make sense to farm organically. Fruits and vegetables come to mind. Organic for the sake of being organic is just asinine.
 
Organic farmers (I'm talking commercial, not the 1/4 acre plot type) will use a lot more fuel in spraying their crops. The pesticides that are approved for organic use do not have the residual activity of the traditional ones. I know that in organic apple orchards, the grower is out spraying almost twice as often because of this.

So, you get produce with less pesticides in it, but it takes more fuel to produce it.
 
I find CO2 footprints laughable. That said and without being a dick about it, our homebrew is about as green a beverage as you can possibly procure. The bottles of cheap French wine those people are drinking at picnics from the tailgate of their Prius has a larger environmental impact than almost anything they could consume.

:shakes head and backs away:
 
Williams Brewing 300

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