Green Beer

Yes, I know St. Patrick's Day was last month, and I know this month is Earth Month, although you may have been thinking that I must have forgot due to my lack of posting. [side note: It seems that if I promise to post, I am less likely to post (that's me shying away from commitments, I'm sure), so from now on no more promises.] But I'm talking about a different kind of green beer than the artificially colored stuff people drink on March 17. I'm talking about green beer, i.e. environmentally friendly beer. I was just doing some browsing and came across a few tips on Earth Share, some of which I've never thought to do, such as ordering beer on tap when you go out - even though many restaurants recycle, it's always better to reduce the amount of bottles used in the first place.  Now how come I didn't think of that?

Other tips include opting for beer in glass bottles over aluminum cans, but a bit more research reveals that glass is not always the more environmentally friendly answer. Although it takes twice the amount of energy to manufacture a can than it does a bottle, you have to consider that this is only if all new materials are being used. In America, most aluminum cans are made from 40% recycled material, while bottles are made from 20-30%. Still, it does take less energy to make glass, and it's also less hard on the earth's surface to make glass - glass is made from silica, which is much more accessible than bauxite used to make aluminum, which, according to Brendan Koerner's eco-guide to responsible drinking, "requires substantial, land-scarring effort to extract from the Earth; the United States imports virtually all of its bauxite from the likes of Australia, Guinea, and Jamaica, where mining operations have caused environmental controversy."

But then you have to factor in where your beer is coming from - as Koerner reports, an empty can weighs less than an ounce, while an empty bottles weighs almost six ounces, which means that beer in bottles emits more carbon emissions than beer in cans since the heavier an item the more fuel it requires to be transported. If your beer travels across the country in glass, it emits 20% more carbon than if it was in aluminum. The eco-guide says that the best thing to do is drink local beers, although "you might want to check where those nearby breweries obtain their containers—it's alarmingly common for empty cans and bottles to travel hundreds of miles from manufacturer to bottling plant."

Who knew there was so much research to be done on having a beer? (am I taking the fun away? I hope not).

Also, both aluminum and glass are infinitely recyclable (as long as they are clean), but, says Koerner, there's a weaker demand for recycled glass:

While automakers and other manufacturers crave aluminum, 90 percent of recycled glass simply ends up going back into bottles and similar containers. And sorting facilities usually separate brown, green, and clear bottles from one another before processing, a laborious and pricey endeavor. It takes a lot of energy to rid green glass, in particular, of the metals (such as iron and copper) that are used to tint it, and there's little market for the stuff once it's been recycled; as a result, a lot of towns don't even bother to recycle your Heineken empties.

 So clearly the best thing to do is get a keg, right? Well, the best thing would be for glass bottles to be refillable (the way everyone used to do with milk). I'll let Koerner explain since he does a better job of it than I could:

Glass bottles would make more environmental sense if they were refillable, as they are in parts of Europe and Canada. Yes, there are energy costs associated with trucking the empty bottles back to the brewery. But according to a 2001 study conducted on behalf of the European Commission, refillables still come out ahead of single-use bottles and cans. In fact, if we assume that a refillable bottle were used 20 times, and that the glass bottles used over that period were recycled at a rate of 42 percent, then the refillable would win over disposable options as long as the distance between the brewery and the local distribution center was less than 2,608 miles. (As myriad beverage-industry professionals have pointed out, refillable bottles would be even more efficient if they were made of polyethylene terephthalate rather than glass.)

 But until American breweries offer refillable glass bottles (which Koerner does not seem hopeful about, and who's to say enough Americans would keep their bottles to be refilled? Hell, only 25% of bottles are recycled!), one of the best things to do, if you are having a large gathering, is to get a keg, since kegs are reusable:

Draught beer is the greenest means of getting your hops-and-barley fix, as kegs can last between 15 and 20 years. Sure, they're heavy, but in terms of packaging per serving they're actually lighter than glass bottles—based on an empty weight of 29.7 pounds, a 15.5-gallon keg provides just 2.88 ounces of packaging per 12-ounce beer.

 So I guess you have some of your own research to do on which container your beer should come in. For someone like me, who doesn't drink much beer or often, I plan on ordering tap beer if I'm out (which is what, once a year? kidding...), and looking for as-local-as-possible beer in bottles if I'm buying some for at home.

P.S. If you were in Minnesota right now, you'd think you stepped out of a time machine or into a winter dream.....is it really April? The evidence suggests otherwise...