The Most Eco-Friendly Beer? The Kind You Brew at Home
By Our Green Team | Jun 30 2009, 12:32

Everything has a carbon footprint: The toasted bagel you eat for breakfast. The sunglasses you slip on before riding your bike to school. The ballpoint pen you use to write down a new friend's phone number. Even the cold beer you might enjoy while watching a baseball game at home on a Saturday afternoon.

And that's why changing the type of beer you drink can have a meaningful impact on the planet.

Exaggeration? Not at all.

Consider the way you, the average beer-lover, get your favorite brew. You most likely drive to a nearby (or not-so-nearby) store, pick up a six-pack from the refrigerated beer aisle, then drive back home to stow the pack in your kitchen fridge. All those miles logged use up fossil fuels and generate greenhouse gas emissions - 8.8 kilograms of carbon per gallon of gas, according to Grist.

Riding your bike or walking to the store would eliminate one part of beer's carbon footprint, but not all of it. That's because all the processes that happen before the beer even gets to the store - growing, harvesting, transporting, brewing, bottling, shipping and chilling - also have an impact.

A 2008 study (PDF) by The Climate Conservancy, for example, found the footprint for one of New Belgium Brewing Company's six-packs was just under 3.2 kilograms (about seven pounds) of carbon dioxide-equivalent. The largest portion of that - 28.1 percent - came from the electricity-related carbon emissions generated by refrigeration at stores. Other major impacts came from production and transportation of glass bottles (21.6 percent), production and transportation of malt and barley (18.6 percent) and shipping and distribution of the finished beer (8.4 percent).

Obviously, you can't eliminate all of those processes. Growing malt and barley might produce carbon emissions, but without malt and barley there's no beer. Still, imagine how much lower your beer's carbon footprint could be if you eliminated some other parts... The energy needed to power retail refrigerators, for instance, or the transportation of glass bottles.

How can you do that? By brewing your own beer at home.

If that conjures up images of filling up your bathtub with hops, malt and brewers yeast, and making your house smell like the grounds of Munich's Theresienwiese on the day after Oktoberfest, think again. Brewing beer at home is easier than ever.

Look, for example, at The Beer Machine® available at GlobalForce Network's own EcoMart, which is simple, self-contained system that lets you brew a variety of different beers inside your fridge in just seven to 10 days. And the Web is full of informative sites and resources for beer-lovers looking for DIY brew options, ideas and tips. You'll find no shortage of fellow brew-masters - from novice to pro - ready to help you out online.

Home brewing: sounds like a pretty sweet way to eliminate cans, bottles and shopping trips from your life while also enjoying a more natural and eco-friendly cold beverage on a relaxing weekend, doesn't it?