Earlier in the summer in my Beer 101 column for Sherbrooke Liquor, I began a three part series on beer and the environment. Parts I & II (here is the onbeer post summarizing both) looked at the carbon footprint of beer in general and at the age-old bottle vs. can debate.

However, I promised when I started the series that I wouldn’t do the standard enviro-thing and leave you all depressed and feeling everything is hopeless and we are doomed ecologically (we might be, but I didn’t want to end on that note). So, the third part looks at environmental success stories – practical, real things breweries are doing to make their operations more sustainable and earth-friendly. You can read Part III here.

I find I have been growing weary of breweries bragging about how they send their spent grain to  local farmers to feed cattle, and how they capture fugitive heat and use it for secondary purposes. It is not that those are bad things – they are indeed good things – but it is just that almost EVERYBODY does that these days. It makes good business sense as much as it helps the planet. Organic ingredients also make a difference, but that still feels like a rather simple shift.

Instead I wanted to look at breweries that have gone the next step, who have made significant investments in making their breweries greener. I actually found quite a number of breweries who have taken serious steps to reduce their environmental footprint – something that makes me feel quite optimistic, actually. In the column I point to Steam Whistle’s bio-diesel trucks and to Anderson Valley’s solar panel array.

I pay most attention to two breweries – Alaskan Brewing and New Belgium. I choose them both because they deserve it (they may be leaders in North America. on this front) but also because their particular initiatives are just plain cool! Alaskan’s spent grain-fueled boiler and mash filter press are simply genius. I love that not only is their mash filter press less-resource intensive, it actually has a higher conversion efficiency.

And then there is New Belgium. I likely am giving them too much exposure, really, but it is hard to write an article about green initiatives and NOT talk about their smart energy system and bio-gas water treatment and go-generation plant. They are the closest brewery on the planet (that I am aware of) to being carbon neutral. That deserves a few column inches, I think.

In short, folks, we are not screwed. If the ground-breaking innovations of breweries like Alaskan and New Belgium filter through the rest of the industry, then we have the potential of making the world of beer making truly sustainable. And wouldn’t that be a good thing for our grand kids when they hit drinking age?