8 College-Town Breweries Producing Great, Green Beer
5. New Belgium Brewing Co. (Fort Collins, Colorado)
Image via New Belgium Brewing Co.Students at the local Colorado State University campus must be stoked to be in the same town as the makers of hipster favorite Fat Tire. We prefer the roasty, but not heavy, 1554 Enlightened Black Ale or the über-refreshing Blue Paddle Pilsner, but no matter your choice of New Belgium beer, everyone can agree that the brewery itself is one of the country's greenest. Way back in 1998, employees pitched in to help the brewery become the first in the U.S. to buy all its electricity from wind power, diverting some of their profit-sharing pool to pay the premium for sustainable energy. Today, New Belgium collects methane from its brewing wastewater and uses it to generate up to 15 percent of the power used by the facility. Everything from heat to spent grain to old keg caps is recycled, the building's lights are motion-sensitive, and the local delivery trucks are fueled with biodiesel. The company's owners must be big bike fans too: They give each employee a bicycle on their first anniversary, run an annual fund-raising Tour de Fat to promote cycling, and organize two-wheeled "Urban Assault Ride" scavenger hunts. If you're staying on campus during the summer, New Belgium even hosts outdoor "bike-in cinema" screenings on the brewery's front lawn.
6. Brooklyn Brewery (Brooklyn, New York)
Image via Brooklyn Brewery.College students from all five boroughs are likely to have encountered an easy-drinking lager or two from the Brooklyn Brewery, which sells the majority of its beer in the New York metropolitan area. The first company in New York City to switch to 100 percent wind-generated electricity for its Williamsburg plant, the brewery has, through that change, kept an estimated 335,000 pounds of carbon dioxide, 1,500 pounds of sulfur dioxide, and 500 pounds of nitrogen oxide from polluting the environment. It also donates waste grains to farmers to use as feed and uses organic malts--the main ingredient in beer--in some of its brews and recently hosted a fundraiser for the stalwart public-transit advocates at Transportation Alternatives that featured "locally sourced, farm-fresh food and eco-friendly tableware." And take note: There's a happy hour every Friday from 6 p.m.-11 p.m.
7. Lakefront Brewery (Milwaukee, Wisconsin)
Images via Lakefront Brewery.The former "beer capital of the the world" is now home to the country's oldest certified organic brewery, producing a variety of beers--including a gluten-free one--with 100 percent organic hops and grains, so students at greater Milwaukee's 15 universities and colleges can honestly tell mom they're minding their health. Since good-quality organic hops in sufficient quantities remain hard to come by, the Lakefront Brewery is working with organic farmers in Wisconsin to help revive the state's formerly thriving hops industry. It also contributes 15,000 pounds of spent grain each week to Growing Power, a Milwaukee-based non-profit and land trust that works to provide equal access to healthy, safe, and affordable food in urban areas and low-income communities. The brewery also purchases part of its power from a wind-energy provider, recycles heat from the brewing process, has replaced 95 percent of its lighting with energy-efficient compact fluorescent bulbs, and is working with Travel Green Wisconsin to continually improve the sustainability of its operations.
8. Otter Creek Brewing Co. (Middlebury, Vermont)
The small town of Middlebury, Vermont, is home not only to Middlebury College, one of the country's greenest colleges, but also one of its greenest breweries. The Otter Creek Brewing Co. is the maker of the creamy and smooth Wolaver's Organic Brown Ale, the best-selling organic beer in the United States. The Wolaver's line is produced using a B20 biodiesel-fueled boiler, reducing CO2 emissions by 120,000 pounds, and plans are in the works for an on-site biomass boiler and power-generation facility that would produce all the brewery's energy from local Vermont wood chips and its own spent grain. Like many other green breweries, Wolaver's recycles heat used in the brewing process, uses outdoor air to help cool the beer warehouse, has installed energy-efficient lighting, and treats wastewater on-site. A big proponent of local foods, the brewery works with area farmers to increase local cultivation of the crops it uses--and makes an "organic farmers series" of beers named after the soil-tillers who make it possible for us to raise a glass to them. Cheers to that.
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