Bottling Time!

Round 1, almost complete!

After 2.5 weeks of impatiently waiting for fermentation to finish, today is bottling day! I was able to find a friend who brews and was willing to lend me all the bottling supplies I needed, reducing the plastic bucket, tubing, bottle capper demand in the world by one. A few more awesome friends were happily lured into helping with the promise of freshly brewed beer. 

I was more prepared this time and was able to save all the water used to clean bottling equipment to do my dishes and to wash brewing equipment in preparation for the next round! The biggest bonus of the night was that the huge accumulation of glass bottles under my sink is finally in use and no longer a despairing reminder of wasteful behavior.

45 bottles fewer in the trash or recycling.

45 bottles of witbier bottled and ready to pop in 1-2 weeks!

               Ta-da! First attempt at sustainable beer-making is looking good!

Because only about 12.5% of glass is recycled, being able to re-use existing bottles is the best way to extend sustainability because it reduces demand for glass bottles and re-purposes them, thereby extending their lifecycle. Of course, the entire beer industry needs to be re-vamped to make the process more sustainable. Here are some innovative breweries who are re-thinking the process and increasing their sustainability and environmental awareness.

Steamwhistle Brewing-Canada:  Re-uses each bottle up to 45 times by producing a bottle from 30% more glass and emphasizing to customers importance of returning bottles. The logo is also painted onto the bottle to reduce the amount of trees processed to make labels, eliminates toxic ink, varnish and glue- common environmental hazards.  http://www.steamwhistle.ca/ourbeer/greenInitiatives.php

Sierra Nevada: “In 2012, 99.8% of solid waste was diverted from the landfill through creative measures that encourage reuse, recycling or composting of waste." They also developed a new compost system that uses organic waste from brewing to feed their hop and barley fields, restaurant garden, and employee garden. http://www.sierranevada.com/brewery/about-us/sustainability#/resource-recovery

P.S. For anyone who is wondering why I am not just circumventing containers all together and tapping beer directly from a keg…the price tag is HUGE! Not only is a mini keg unit going to run you at least $200 with CO2 tubes, regulator etc, it also requires a separate refrigeration unit, energy to cool it, and considerable additional equipment that is only less wasteful if you brew often and have quite a few brews all refrigerating at one time.