BrewDog Is Now Carbon Negative

Well done brewdog. Using the spent grain to produce power and carbonation is a cool thing I'd never heard of, hopefully they can pioneer some techniques the rest of the industry can pick up

 

Wonder if Stone will sue them...

 

It used to be pretty common for breweries that "force carbonated" their beers to capture their own CO2 from the fermentation tanks and then inject it into the beer at packaging. (Seems like that also prevented releasing the CO2 into the atmosphere).

Two illustrations from brewing diagrams from the 1930s and 1940s:



From what I understand, during the craft era it had been cheaper (but, obviously, not as "green") to buy carbon dioxide from outside suppliers which was produced as a by-product of ethanol fuel production.

 

JK (@jesskidden), there is a statement of:

"The world’s largest craft brewer, BrewDog, announced today..."

Do you know how many barrels of beer per year that BrewDog produces worldwide? How does that figure compare to the annual production of beer from Yeungling, Boston Beer Co., Sierra Nevada,...

Cheers!

 

Ha! I was just Gogglin' that very statement because I, too, questioned it. It does seem unlikely to me given the sizes (capacity) of their various breweries, previous years' barrelage* figures, etc.

There's this from last year: "In 2018, the company’s beer sales were 500,000 hectolitres (i.e., 426,000 barrels) globally which it said was still less than 50% of its global capacity."

So, it would seem like they don't even have the capacity to brew in the Yuengling/Boston Beer range of +2 million barrels.

* Which, I guess, one can still use even if they measure their production in hectolitres...

 

Well, it seems that BrewDog likes to operate in a bodacious manner so claiming that they are the word's largest craft brewery is consistent with their MO. Facts be damned!!

Cheers!

 

Weren't these people the ones who, a few years ago, wanted to have Brewdog Airlines?

 

Well, maybe the boys read the BA forums and have picked up on and follow the concept that everyone gets to have their own definition of "Craft Brewery"?

Or, maybe(?), they're claiming to be the largest craft brewer with multiple breweries in more than one country - so "World" not "US", etc.? But if that's it, there's a much better way to phrase it, that's for sure.

But, I guess, "Multinational" ain't exactly a "punk" term.

 

Haha ya I guess the failure of.that enterprise was actually just the first and most important step toward this noble goal

 

In addition to what @jesskidden said... Brew Dog isn't the first craft brewer to do these things either.

"The Bell’s Bio-Energy Building processes more than 100,000 gallons of wastewater daily converting pollutants into renewable energy for use at the brewery. The building came online in December, 2014..." Bells also has a geothermal field and various systems to reduce water, reclaim heat, and reduce electricity.

Sierra Nevada Mills River brewery also generates power from wastewater and reclaims CO2 to carbonate beer, among many other things.

New Belgium also has onsite biogas power generation combined with solar electricity/heat systems, among many other things.

Not to take anything away from Brew Dog. They should be congratulated for the investments. I'll give them a pass for some marketing embellishments in this case.

 

They're just trolling Trump.
Airlines, hotels, reality TV shows --- (maybe?) it's why they even got into beer itself.

Somethin' to do with Scotland and golf, I guess?

 

Awesome, thanks for posting those fine efforts by breweries I actually like a lot more. Way to go brewers

 

Tangentially related... A typical [aerobic] public sewage treatment system can have difficulty treating larger large discharges of organic material, like brewery waste water. So, breweries that pre-treat their waste water, are relieving stress from those public systems, which is another indirect public benefit. However, you need a fairly large brewing operation like Brewdog, Bells, Sierra Nevada, etc. so it's not feasible for small craft brewers, but the small brewers can have over-sized impact on the public sewer systems. However, a few public sewage treatment facilities have upgraded, and many have plans to upgrade, their systems to anaerobic treatment with biogas energy generation, for obvious reasons. For an anaerobic public sewage treatment system, high organic discharges, like brewery waste water, is a benefit because they can make more biogas energy.

 

I feel like this money and time spent on this is a 95% marketing /5% actually helping the environment. If they really wanted to drastically help reduce carbon they would buy 2,000 acres of rainforest and hire 24/7 armed guards to protect it. That would astronomically do a lot more practical help to our world carbon problem than planting pine trees in Scotland and investing in expensive technology and equipment primarily to show off. Just saying.

 

Except they're brewers, who likely don't know shit about buying and protecting rainforest. Their goal is to make money from beer sales. If they can find a way to be carbon negative while pursuing the goal of making money off beer, then we, as the beer consumers who presumably don't want the world to burn to a crisp, should be applauding and pushing other brewers to do the same. Just my $0.02.

 

Big disclaimer: I am not a carbon neutral (or negative) expert.

It would seem that BrewDog is approaching their goal to be carbon negative via two modes:

· Reduce their carbon footprint via their business operations

· Encouraging agriculture (forestry, etc.) to remove carbon (CO2)

I have no idea how trustworthy the Rainforest Trust organization is but:

“Just $10 donated towards Rainforest Trust’s Saving Indigenous Lands in the Amazon project in Peru can protect 5 acres and approximately 931 metric tons of CO2 equivalents. If released into the atmosphere, that would be equal to the yearly carbon dioxide released by 201 U.S. cars.

All those emissions, prevented through a $10 donation.”

https://www.rainforesttrust.org/climate-action/

If the above is true, this would seem to be a very cost effective way to mitigate CO2.

I wonder if the BrewDog folks considered Rainforest Trust as part of their overall plan to become carbon negative?

Cheers!

 

I've never considered that companies could use contributions to organizations like this as way to "offset" their carbon impact. I suppose the math checks out but it feels misleading. Wonder if they actually do this? It's certainly something I wouldn't put pass Brewdog...

 

These guys are either gonna crash & burn hard in the next decade or they're the smartest guys in the room. Only time will tell

 

Well, apparently BrewDog chose to buy/build their own forest:

"As part of these efforts it has also purchased 2,050 acres of Scottish Highlands just north of Loch Lomond, to create the BrewDog Forest, and plans to plant one million trees over the next few years."

I have no purview into how much this cost BrewDog but perhaps they prefer to go this way since they can locally advertise their efforts here:

"The brewer also plans to create a sustainable campsite on the land, that will host sustainability retreats and workshops for the general public, in addition to inviting its 130,000 Equity Punks investors to help with tree planting from early 2021."

My guess is that if BrewDog used the money to purchase this land and instead provided it to an organization such as Rainforest Trust they could save waaaay more than 2,050 acres of forest and thereby mitigate waaaay more CO2 but they would lack the PR that comes with purchasing their own forest. A business choice I suppose?

Cheers!