Another option is to brew with organic ingredients. If you're interested in learning more, see 7 Bridges Cooperative at
www.breworganic.com
I buy organic grain malt at the Chicago warehouse for MidCountry Malts.
I don't want to rain on your parade, but organic grains aren't as environmentally friendly as one might think. Below is some information I wrote up when this topic came up in the past.
I really hope this rant doesn't end up sounding combative, as I really do believe in most organic produce especially with fruits and vegetables. But I also feel the organic label is just blindly accepted as better when that isn't true in all cases. In my experience grains are one of the exceptions where organic is actually worse.
My father and I farm barley and wheat in central Montana. I feel I have some unique insight as I have seen our land farmed many different ways over the years. My grandfather was organic by default (everyone was organic in those days). My father has followed more conventional farming changes. As a conventional farmer I understand if you are wary of my information, but nonetheless I will try to accurately describe the pros/cons of the different farming practices I have witnessed.
I do see the benefit of organic when it comes to fruits, vegetables, and even hops. These plants often get directly sprayed with insecticides and fungicides. But when it comes to grains, they are typically only sprayed with herbicides (to control weeds) in the plants infancy long before the seed is formed and not at all if the farmer had good weed control before planting. As for insecticides and fungicides, we rarely sprayed them on grain fields. The rather dry weather in grain areas for the most part prevent the need for insecticides and fungicides. While I dont deny the possible negatives of chemical residues, I feel they are far less then the negatives caused by organic weed control practices.
To control weeds organic grain farmers go back to the old days of plowing a field. While the non-organic no-till farming method we use requires herbicides, we have far more organic matter in or soil versus organic plowed fields. Continually plowing a field repeatedly exposed the organic matter to the air where it quickly oxidizes into carbon dioxide (which contributes to global warming). Less organic matter in the soil means less water retention (plus erosion), less nutrient release, and more crusting of the soil. Crusted soil (a common problem in organic grain farming) creates a poor seed bed and plant roots get less water and oxygen.
Plowed fields also drastically increase land erosion often into river and streams. The recent drought was just as bad as the dust bowl of the 1930's. The reason topsoil didn't blow away and the country didn't starve this time was because of newer farming practices, practices that organic farmers can't use. In addition to erosion, plowing a field burns vastly more fossil fuels than the alternative. Since we started using more modern non-organic farming practices our diesel consumption has dropped by over half.
From what I can gather organic farmers of fruits and vegetable produce similar yields (sometimes even better) to conventional farming methods. This is far from true with grain farming. Talking to organic grain farmers in our area and knowing what my grandfather produced, organic grain land produces less than half the yield of conventional methods.
This decreases the food supply and increases prices. Now this is great for the farmer, but bad for the consumer especially the poor who struggle to afford food. Another side effect of less productive organic land is that more land has to be broken up from its "natural" state to grow the same amount of food. Unlike fruits and vegetables where lots of food can be produced on a small amount of land, grains require vast areas. Lower yielding organic grains cause vast tracts of land to be broken up from its natural state. Largely because of the high grain prices (lower yielding organic grains play a role) we have broken up 700 acres that where previously in native grass.
I hope it doesn't seem like I am attacking organic supporters, as I am an organic guy in many cases. I just think there is a lot of disinformation out there especially when it comes to organic grains, which do have some very serious environmental side effects.
