Green Beer for St. Patrick’s Day? Think Sustainable Brew

Traditional beer brewing is not the most sustainable practice, but because of its popularity many brewers are rethinking and streamlining the process to be more sustainable. Beer drinking is not going away. Did you know that Americans drink 50 billion pints of beer a year. If all that beer came out of cans and you set one can on top of the other, it would reach the moon, 20 times. But more importantly, most of the 6 million pounds of grain used for beer making is laden with pesticides, not to mention how much water it takes to brew beer.

Because of their connection to community micro-breweries are successfully leading the charge in gentler brewing methods. But the big boys are in the game to, for instance Anheuser-busch is partnering with Blue Marble Bio to make shaving creams and soaps out of brewing waste.

I haven’t been drinking much beer in the last 15 years or so due to being non-gluten. Thankfully there are some great non-gluten beers that my brother has turned me onto, but that’s another story. So, not being an avid beer drinker, I had to do did a little homework.

Here’s what I found out:

LISTS OF SUSTAINABLE BEERS FROM SOME RELIABLE SOURCES

This list from a Mother Jones article by Kimi Harris

Eel River Brewing Company

Butte Creek Organic Beer

Bison Brewing

Peak Organic Brewing Company

Lakefront Beer

EatDrinkBetter post about mid-size North American sustainable beers

New Belgium Beer

Steamwistle

Long Trail Brewing Company