Posted on 02/08/2013 10:38:38 PM PST by nickcarraway
There are all sorts of ways for companies to go green these days: Solar panels, eco-friendly packaging, biofuels, and now, beer. One Alaskan brewery is using the extra grain left over after it brews its beer to create energy.
The Alaskan Brewing Company built a special steam boiler that uses the soggy spent grain to power their brewhouse. The company says its new "beer-powered beer" will cut oil use by more than half.
Brandon Smith, the company's brewing operations and engineering manager, joins us from Juneau to talk about
Ping
Been to their brewery in 1994. It’s grown since then, but they brew seriously good beer.
Anyway, they have a special incentive to pursue every other possible energy source: Their fuel sources have to come in by sea, and are ferociously expensive.
In upstate NY, the lumberjacks/Trucking companies used to recycle the MANY gallons of used motor oil their diesels went through by drip feeding it into the wood stoves that heated many of their garages. instead of dumping it.
You can guess what happened once the greenies got wind of that.
Proof that necessity and opportunity do more to drive progress than any government edict ever will.
I was in their brewery in 2009. Their beer is still seriously delicious.
My favourite brew pub makes dog biscuits with the spent grain. What they don’t use there is picked up by a local farmer and fed to his “organic” cattle, and comes back as fresh, delicious beef.
Burgers and beer, and treats for my canine buddies all from the same grain. It can’t get any better than that!
This is the only kind of green beer I’d be interested in on St. paddys day or any other day.
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