BrewDog Is Now Carbon Negative

Yeah, Jack that is same thinking pattern of rationalization I was on. It's still great that they are pursuing something towards a good purpose, but going about it the longer, harder, more expensive way without maximizing CO2 efficiency, but they get the optics this way.

 

Last week Rich Wagner, a Philadelphia area beer historian, posted on his Facebook page information and photos of the Spangler brewery, which operated from 1905 to 1916 in Spangler, PA. "...equipped with chip casks, stock tubs and fermenting tubs, and arranged for the Schneible system of collecting the gas from the fermenting tubs and charging the finished beer with this gas before it is filled into the small packages."

https://www.facebook.com/richawagner/posts/10215466844138086

 

A little help from Google uncovered a copy of Schneible's US patent, dated 1898. https://patents.google.com/patent/US611081

"This invention relates particularly to the collection of carbon dioxid as it is produced by fermentation... A fermenting-vat such as is commonly used in breweries is represented at A in Fig. 1 as the source of supply of the gas to be collected, washed, and stored under pressure, although,as is obvious,the gas may be derived from any source..."

 

Yeah, a number of US brewers were working on so-called "carbonizing" or "carbonization" systems in the late 19th century. Pabst's brewmaster (1884-1902), J. F. "Fritz" Theurer, is credited with having done a lot of the work on the process in the US, as well as holding patents for his system.

 

@jesskidden , @Ranbot , given how widespread and sensible this set up is (was?), how were brewers dissuaded from using it? I suppose its like solar, cheaper over time but a higher up front cost? Any sense if the process produces excess, not enough, or just enough CO2?

 

Glad to be able to say something nice about BrewDog after all the bad shit I've said about their ridiculous stunts and overpriced, underperforming beers. Right on BrewDog! Go Green FTW!

 

Friends of mine, co-brewmasters, have one at the brewpub and IIRC it produces some varying amount less than needed to force carb the beer using a carbonation stone. I also think it was mentioned as being pretty expensive. These guys came into a wonderful situation of designing the entire brewery part of the pub, and basically given a blank check. Certainly that is hardly the case for almost every other small brewery start up, so I don't know how realistic it is to think this could be in every brewery in America. Maybe someone more in the loop nowadays could chime in about it. Hopefully it does become common, every bit counts.

And just to say it again, Bravo BrewDog!!!

 

Of course it's cost, as you alluded to, but I don't know the specifics. Maybe @jesskidden does.

I think I remember from when Sierra Nevada built their Mills River brewery they stated they still need to buy CO2, but it's significantly off-set by in-house CO2 capture. I could be wrong... Maybe @SierraTerence would be willing to chime in.

 

Yeah, I've always figured that when the relatively tiny "craft" brewers in the 80s and 90s started up, small units just weren't available or were prohibitively expensive? (Well, except for the brewers who were carbonating via bottle-conditioning, krausening, bunging, etc). And the low cost and availability of CO2 from industrial sources - ethanol production, natural gas refining, etc. - made buying it even more attractive.

The 1977 ed. of The Practical Brewer (MBAA) said:

By 1999, The Brewer's Handbook noted:

Interestingly, some brewers who used the process referred to it as "natural carbonation" (the theory I guess being that it was "natural" because it came from their own fermentation? But it was obviously processed in the brewery itself), confusing it with beers that were krausened which were often advertised as being "naturally carbonated" along with other "non-foreign" sounding terms (and which didn't rhyme with "poisoned"! ) like "brewed twice" "secondary fermentation" and "double fermented".

 

Yeah, CO2 plants are expensive and there is a point (volume/barrelage) where they make sense. It's true, that we put in CO2 recovery in Mills River after ramping up our brewing volumes. This has maybe changed since I was running our CO2 plant. At that time, CO2 recovery plants were only designed for larger breweries and companies weren't offering small skids for breweries under 250K bbls.

 

I don't mean for this to come off as any sort of a snobbish remark... and I love Brewdog's transparency with their recipes, the idea of their hotels and flights, and especially this idea, but....who actually drinks Brewdog?