COLORADO’S ENVIRONMENTALLY FRIENDLY BREWERIES
 |
Beer production in Colorado is a green enterprise - Photo courtesy of the Fort Collins CVB
|
Read About
Colorado Brewing Industry
New Belgium Brewing Company
Coors Brewing Company
Odell Brewing Company
Colorado Brewing Industry
Colorado has more per capita breweries than any other state in the U.S. Its breweries have one of the largest social consciences in the industry as well. A number of brewing companies regularly find ways to cut back on power consumption and inventive means to reuse and recycle, including the use of re-circulated water to heat their mash tons — giant tanks used in the brewing processes — and the use of beer byproducts in fertilizer and cattle feed. As Pete Coors, a former beer baron, has said, "Waste is a resource out of place."
Top of page
New Belgium Brewing Company
Among the more unique eco-friendly ventures in the beer world is New Belgium’s Tour de Fat Festival, held on various dates nationwide. This event seeks out one individual per tour stop who will agree to trade in their car, and give up owning another one for the rest of their lives. For this sacrifice, New Belgium provides the now car-free individual with a free, high-end road bike, as well as immortalization in the eyes of the go-green community. In addition to this evangelism of environmentalism, in 1998, New Belgium became the first brewery in the nation to subscribe to wind-powered electricity. This eco-friendly brewery even turns its old keg caps into tabletops, uses sun tubes to light its warehouse and heats its building with the same water it uses to brew beer.
Top of page
Coors Brewing Company
Even the big hitters of the beer industry take environmentalism to heart in Colorado. Coors, one of the largest beer brewers in the world has implemented a number of steps toward greening up its business.
Coors was the first of the big brewers to use commercially produced aluminum cans in 1959, straying from the industry standard of harder-to-recycle steel. Originally, experts saw this $1 billion change as risky at best. Luckily for Coors, their environmentally friendly gamble paid dividends for their shareholders as well as the earth — the first in a long line of bottom line and environmental improvements. The same year they turned to aluminum, the company began offering an incentive to its customers to recycle their cans, offering one cent per can, helping to launch the now national recycling revolution. Coors Brewing does more than just look after its own practices. In fact, this brewing powerhouse processes and recycles not only its own wastewater, but also that of the entire city of Golden.
True to Coors’ mandate that waste is just a resource out of place, the company sells roughly 1.5 million gallons of ethanol — a brewing byproduct — to Colorado refineries. In addition, this Colorado company sells some 600 million pounds of other solid material as cattle feed to local farmers — turning what was once considered trash into eco-friendly feed.
Top of page
Odell Brewing Company
Other craft breweries have taken hold the banner of environmental sustainability, including Odell Brewing Company. At Odell, they bottle their brew in nothing but recyclable glass and ensure their six-pack holders are made from recycled paper. They’ve even gone so far as to install what they call a “Hot Shot Box.” This device is plugged into Fort Collins' city grid, and when the residents of Fort Collins have the city’s power running on peak demand, the city radios this inventive box and tells it to shut down a few of the brewery’s coolers, thus saving power. And even when the coolers and every other beer-making device is running, they’re drawing off of 100 percent clean and efficient wind power.
New Belgium, Coors and Odell are not the only Colorado breweries that undertake environmentally friendly practices; a great many other breweries can also tout green initiatives. Contact a local brew master for details on what they’re doing to provide beer with minimal environmental impact.
Find these and other Colorado breweries.
Top of page
