We all know about the prospering green market in food, but what
about green beer? Not the kind you drink on St. Patrick’s Day, but
the kind that’s environmentally sustainable. There are plenty of
beer drinkers in the Slow
Food crowd who don’t want to pollute their bodies with
industrially produced macrobrews, and a handful of breweries are
trying to quench their thirst.
Hugh Wilson taps into the burgeoning eco-beer revolution in Great
Britain for The Independent. In a country known for
its beer-making tradition, Wilson laments that ‘[f]our global
brewers dominate the British beer industry, mass-producing what
opponents characterise as homogenous plastic fizz.’ Much the same
could be said of American beers and suds worldwide.
The fact is, beer that’s made with care often just tastes
better. Connoisseurs know that Budweiser and Coors taste like
water, not to mention the historically shady politics of the Coors
family. It’s the lagers, porters, pale ales, and stouts that are
known for their taste, not the light beers that dominate dive bars
and frat-boy refrigerators. But in spite of market dominance by
conglomerates like Anheuser-Busch (take note of your favorite beer
— the company probably owns it), microbreweries have been popping
up all over the world with surprising success. ‘We’re busier than
ever,’ James Campbell, the head brewer of
Marble Beers, tells
The Independent. Based in Manchester, the brewery makes
five regular types of beer, and all their beers are organic and
vegan.
That all beer isn’t vegan may come as a shock. But many
large-scale manufacturers use fish extracts to de-cloud their
beers, a method shunned by Marble Beers. And there are options for
vegans in the United States too.
New Belgium Brewery in
Colorado, known for its Fat Tire Amber Ale, makes all of its beers
free of animal by-products. The company also has the distinction of
being the ‘first 100% wind-powered brewery’ in the United States.
And it’s not alone.
Take Brooklyn
Brewery, for example. Co-founder and President Steve Hindy
decided to dole out some extra cash and convert his brewery’s
headquarters into one powered entirely by wind. In an
interview with
Satya magazine, Hindy said, ‘people who say the
windmills are ugly, or I don’t want those on my horizon, that seems
so stupid to me, because I think they’re beautiful; and what
they’re doing is a beautiful thing.’ Coming from a successful
businessman, that’s just beautiful.
Go there >>
The Rise of Microbreweries
Go there too >>
A Brewery Grows
in Brooklyn
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