Beer Miles/ Choices for least environmental impact of beer

Lately I've been thinking a lot about how I can reduce my personal negative environmental impact by the choices that I make, both big and small. This was one of my reasons for going vegetarian last January. Although there were many other reasons for my going veggie, one of the big reasons was the fact that, eating meat has a terrible effect on the environment. Lately though, I've even started thinking about my food choices beyond just being a vegetarian. I came across the concept of Food Miles recently, and although I had thought about the issue independently, really researching the idea made me think about it a lot more. Basically, all things being equal, the farther your food must travel from farm to plate, the higher the environmental impact it will have because of increased transport pollution, possibly more packaging, possibly more pesticides and preservatives, etc (along with not tasting as fresh, etc). The idea of eating local foods has even spawned the 100 Mile Diet. People who adhere to this diet, often labelled locavores, strive to eat food only made within 100 miles of their home (including all ingredients in the case of processed food). This can be a very difficult task, even in an agriculturally lush region like southern California, let alone Southwestern Canada, where the 100 Mile Diet was started.

Why am I writing about this on this blog? Isn't this blog about beer (and running)? Well, in thinking about what environmental impact my food choices have, and how I can reduce those negative impacts, I naturally thought about what environmental impact my beer drinking and beer choices have. This brings me to the concept of Beer Miles. I'm not talking about running a race while drinking beer, I'm talking about the concept of how far your beer must travel between bottling and drinking. Doing a search on 'the google', gives lots of webpages, as a search of ANYTHING will do, but only a few are about the type of beer miles that I am talking about. Specifically, I am talking about the distance that your beer, and the ingredients in it, travel between being brewed (or harvested for the ingredients), and you. This concept comes from the concept of Food Miles discussed above. Like Food Miles, with all else being equal, the farther your beer must travel from bottling/canning/kegging to drinking, the greater the environmental impact. Therefore, all else being equal, it would be less environmentaly damaging to drink beer made from local brewers. Other positives from this are supporting the local economy, and drinking beer that is most likely fresher and tastier.

As an example of BEER MILES, Ethical Consumer magazine states, "One study found that ingredients used in a traditional real ale from a local brewery could have travelled 600 miles before being consumed, whilst an imported lager produced by a multinational could have clocked up over 24,000 'beer miles'." This is a huge difference! Think of all the pollution generated by moving all those ingredients around 24,000 miles!

Of course it would be simple minded and ignorant to believe that all that matters is choosing beers that were made close to you (e.g. within 100 miles). There is so much more that matters environmentally, economically, etc. However, all else being equal, beer made locally will be better for the local economy, fresher, and more environmentally friendly. Other issues to think about include: organic vs. non-organic (and ingredients sourcing), draft vs. bottle vs. can, beer packaging methods, brewery production methods, brewery waste-water, waste-heat and waste-ingredients management, brewery energy needs, the list goes on and on.

ORGANIC VS. NON-ORGANIC
Lots of people are into organic ingredients, whether it is vegetables, grain, meat, or beer. In fact, the market for organic food and beer has been growing tremendously lately, as I talked about here. All else being equal, organic ingredients are much better environmentally for a variety of reasons. According to this site, in the UK the average farmer is estimated to spray hops up to 14 times each year with an average of 15 pesticide products. Nasty! As I hinted at in my previous post however, where the organic ingredients come from is important as well. Is it more environmentally friendly to use organic ingredients in beer that were shipped in from New Zealand (as most organic hops seem to be for some reason), or to use non-organic ingredients that were grown a couple hundred miles away? This relates directly to the Food Miles, or Beer Miles concept. Altough a beer may be made from organic ingredients, if the ingredients are sourced from very far away, this may not necessarily be a wise environmental choice. Along the same idea, if a beer is made locally, but uses ingredients sourced from very far away, it is not necessarily more environmentally friendly than a beer made farther away but using ingredients sourced closer to the brewery. Therefore a locally made beer made from local organic ingredients would really take the cake in this category.

DRAFT VS. BOTTLE VS. CAN
Almost without a doubt I can say that drinking draft beer is more environmentally friendly than drinking beer out of a can or bottle. There is much less packaging (less transportation weight and raw materials used) and the keg is reused. Despite recycling programs in place all over the US, most beer cans and bottles still end up in landfills. Also, recycling is certainly superior to throwing away and harvesting raw materials for products, but lots of energy is still expended taking recycled materials and turning them into new products. In terms of which is better: cans vs. bottles (glass and plastic) I don't know. A very in depth analysis would be needed for that answer.

BEER PACKAGING METHODS:
Related to draft vs. bottle vs. can. is overall packaging methods. Are the cans made from recycled aluminum or raw aluminum? Same question for the bottles? Are the cans made from a minimum amount of aluminum or a ridiculous amount like Sapporo cans? Does the beer come with lots of extraneous packaging materials that only creates more waste and uses more energy to create/ transport, etc.? Does the packaging use toxic inks and new cardboard instead of recycled paper and friendlier inks? Lots to think about, but often times difficult for the average consumer to realize or think about.

BREWERY PRODUCTION METHODS:
I'm no expert at beer brewing, but even someone who has no idea how to make beer must realize that different production methods have different environmental implications. I went on a tour of Magic Hat Brewery in Burlington, VT, and the tour guide told us about how they pre-heat the water that is to become beer using the heat from the waste water. This saves a lot of energy. I'm not sure if this is standard procedure for all breweries, but a good example of energy conservation (and money savings for the brewery!) Another example they gave is they take their spent grains from the brewing process and sell them to local farms. Again, this is much better environmentally than dumping it into the trash to be hauled away to a landfill somewhere. These are only two examples of how a brewery can reduce their environmental impact. As I said, I'm no expert at brewing beer, but it is obvious that there are plenty of other ways that a brewery could save energy and reduce their impact by different production methods, e.g. recycling other waste materials, water conservation, waste water treatment, CO2 recovery, etc.

BREWERY ENERGY NEEDS:
Breweries need lots of energy to function. They have to heat the water that becomes the beer, run the pumps and other machines, keep the lights turned on, etc. Most electricity in the US comes from coal plants, which are incredibly dirty and pollute like crazy. Some breweries use cleaner energy however. Brooklyn Brewery buys all of their energy from alternative sources (according to their website, windpower). Sierra Nevada advertises prominenly on their website that they use 4 250kW fuel cells (1MW!) to supply most of their electrical needs. While I am not really sold on fuel cells for clean power, they outline a number of other steps they take at the brewery on their website for being environmentally friendly as well.

As seen above, there are so many factors that determine how 'green' or environmentally friendly a beer or particular brewery is. Many of the factors are too difficult for the average consumer to take into account. As the Sierra Nevada and Brooklyn Brewery links above show however, some information is available to consumers. Some of that information is 'greenwashing', e.g. appearing to be environmentally friendly when it really is not, but some is really genuine. As stated before however, all else being equal, drinking locally produced beer on draft is most likely the most environmentally friendly beer option for the average beer drinker. What about drinking beer at home? Most beer consumers do not have a draft system set up at home. A great option for home beer drinking is buying growlers from local brewpubs. The growlers are recycled over and over, so there is very little packaging waste involved. Of course driving in your car to the brewery to pick up the beer creates pollution, so biking or walking to the brewpub to pick up the beer would really be the 'greenest' option.

Going even further, home beer brewing can theoretically be even more efficient. If local ingredients are sourced (local organic ingredients the best!), the 'beer miles' for that home brewed beer would be very low. Also, the bottles or keg would most likely be reused by a home brewer.

How can a homebrewer take this even further to be the most environmentally friendly possible? The absolute best would be to grow your own organic hops, malt, and yeast, brew your own beer (using pre-heated water from a solar water heater), in your own recycled beer bottles on equipment that was cleaned without a toxic cleaner (Seven Bridges Cooperative recommends cleaning with a mild iodine solution). One of the cover stories on the Oct/Nov Yankee Beer News talks about home hop growing. Apparently it's a lot of hard work but the hops make delicious beer. I don't know about growing your own yeast or malting your own grains, but I imagine it's possible if someone really wants to do it.

What about those that do not want to go all out and homebrew? Brew-It-Yourself places like BarleyCorn in Natick, MA are a great way to brew your own beer with reused beer bottles, without all the work and the chance of screwing something up. At Barleycorn, the brewing takes a couple hours, the bottling take a couple hours, and it is very difficult to make bad beer as everything is supervised. Just like buying from a local brewpub, driving to the place creates pollution, so the best way would be to walk or bike there.

This brings me back to the original concept of Beer Miles. As I try to reduce the impact of my food choices by being vegetarian and eating locally as much as possible, I thought it would be a good idea to try to do the same with my beer. For the past few weeks (starting a week or two before Thanksgiving), I've been trying to drink only locally produced beers. What is locally produced beer? Massachusetts is a good start, using the 100 mile rule, or simply New England I would consider local also. I will strive to do this until the end of the new year. If no local beer choices are available when I am drinking beer, then I won't follow this rule.

This is a partial list of the local beers I have imbibed since starting to drink only locally:

-Cambridge Brewing Company Big Man Ale (draft, at brewpub in Cambridge, Ma)
-Cambridge Brewing Company Blunderbuss Barleywine (draft, at brewpub in Cambridge, MA)
-Sam Adams draft (Boston, or somewhere else)
-Opa Opa Red Rock Ale bottle (outside of 6-pack says Southampton, MA but bottle says Saratoga Springs, NY- huh?)
-Sherwood Forest Brewers Sheriff's IPA bottle (Marlborough, MA)
-Tremont Ale draft (Boston?)
-Concord Brewery Rapscallion Creation Dark Reserve bottle (Lowell, MA)
-Shipyard Prelude draft (Portland, ME)
-Harpoon IPA bottle & draft (Boston or Windsor, VT)
-Harpoon Octoberfest draft (Boston or Windsor, VT)
-Wachusett Winter Lager (Westminster, MA)
-ACE IPA (same as Jack Bauer 24 Hour IPA but under a different name)

Non-local beers consumed:
-PBR (bottle)
-Tecate (bottle)
-Sam Adams Winter (bottle)

Can one person drinking local beer really make a difference on a large scale? Well, maybe not, but the concept of the 100 mile diet started small and has only grown in popularity. Maybe the same thing can happen with this idea. Convincing lots of people to think about the environmental impact of their beer (and food) choices really can make a big difference. Maybe more people can follow the drink locally idea. As I read on some website while researching this post, a good motto to follow is, "Think globally, drink locally".