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Top Green Beer Drinking Tips
- Drink organic brews
Organic beer is a growing force in the industry, with dozens of brands and even more brews to choose from. If a beer carries an organic label, that means it's been certified by the U.S. Department of Agriculture as adhering to strict, legally binding farming regulations. It means you can expect the barley and hops to be organically grown: no toxic pesticides, no artificial fertilizers, no chemical preservatives; just fresh, non-toxic ingredients. Drinking organic (and buying organic) is also a good way to support more sustainable agriculture, and even to combat global warming. - Support green beer companies
Keep an eye out for beer companies that are going the extra mile to achieve environmental responsibility—some companies are truly making a noble effort towards sustainability. The purveyors of the well known Pale Ale, Sierra Nevada, which powers its brewery with solar power. Another solar powered, sustainability proponent is Anderson Brewery in Chico, which may be the first truly 100 percent sustainable brewery. Or check out Cascade Green, an Antipodean beer company that offsets its emissions by 100 percent. All truly organic beers are worth your time too, as mentioned above—just look for the label. - Drink beer from draught instead of from bottles
The keg-inclined out there among us have reason to celebrate, greenly-drinking the draught is greener than downing the bottles. It only takes some simple visualization to understand why this is so: the kegs you'd buy for your college parties, and those that sit 'neath the counter at your favorite bar—how many beers does each hold? Depending on the size, it could be hundreds. That's hundreds of saved cans or bottles, provided you're reusing your cup (see below). Due to the resource savings from the packaging differences, draught beer has been found to have a 68 percent lower impact than bottled beer (according to a Life Cycle Assessment done on both). - Recycle your bottles, cans, and other packaging
If you've just finished off a 12 pack of Silver Bullets (and you're still conscious) make sure to get those cans into the recycling bin—an aluminum can will likely be recycled and back on the shelves within 60 days . Aluminum is a sustainable metal and can be recycled ad infinitum (well, almost). If it's bottles you've got, make sure those get recycled too—most curbside programs will take both. For a little perspective on the bottle, "1 ton of recycled glass saves 1,300 pounds of sand, 410 pounds of soda ash and 380 pounds of limestone," according to Earth911. And don't forget that cardboard box casing—unless it's drenched in beer and ruined, that's some perfectly good fodder for the paper section of your recycling bin. - Reuse the bottle caps
Those dastardly caps are the thorn in the side of the bottle recycling process—many programs won't accept them. So, you'll have to get creative in order to prevent undue waste. Keep them on hand for makeshift game pieces, make fishing lures out of them, undertake a quirky decorating project, make little refrigerator magnets, or make a belt with them. Or, if you're especially ardent, try saving them up in a bag and dropping them buy a metal recycler when it's finally worth your while. - Try vegan beers
Vegans (and vegetarians) may be dismayed to learn that plenty of beers they've drank have contained traces of animal products. Both gelatin, made from animal tissue, or something called isinglass—a collagen made from fish bladders—are used as an agent to clarify beers without putting them through a filtration process which could potentially lessen the flavor. So if you'd rather drink an animal-gut free beer, try a vegan brew like the Green Man Beer from New Zealand. - Drink local, and use a growler
Support your local breweries, and help cut emissions caused by the expansive shipping of imported beers. Ideally, frequent the bar that's in walking distance, to prevent both generating emissions from your own car, and the temptation to drive back from the bar. Even breweries want you to walk to the pub. Also, consider bringing a growler to your local brewery and filling it up with fresh draught beer to cut out bottle waste and recycling hassles—it may be the greenest way to drink at home. - Opt for paper free bottles
If you do buy a bottle, buy one without paper labels and adornments. Go for those that have the labeling printed right on the bottle. These are fewer and further between, but if you're going to buy conventional beer, both Budweiser and Coors have certain brands they sell paperless. Why bother, you ask? Consider that 52 percent of all the alcoholic beverages purchased in the U.S. are beers. Let's assume that 1/3 of those are bottles. Each one of those bottles typically has not one, but two paper labels (one around the body, one around the neck) slapped on it. So next to that pile of bottles imagine what the paper stripped off each would look like. And this is paper that doesn't get recycled—even if we wanted to, it gets wet, soggy, shredded and largely unrecyclable. What ends up happening is the paper is burned off in the recycling process, creating loads of unnecessary emissions. So go paperless. - Don't use disposable cups when serving beer
Sure, sure, those red plastic cups make for that totally classic party vibe, but it might be a classic whose time has past. Most—even those made from recycled plastic—are unrecyclable, meaning they head to the landfill when they're emptied of their sudsy cargo. There are more than enough reusable cups already in existence. Encourage your guests to bring them. And as for that whole reusable vs. disposable debate some feel rages on, the bottom line is really quite simple to comprehend—yes, it takes a minor amount of resources to clean your cups. No, that doesn't make it okay to use disposable cups, which will almost certainly hit the landfill, where they'll stay, for a long, long time. - Avoid Big Beer
Okay, so that doesn't sound as menacing as Big Oil. And the major beer corporations aren't as sinister in their environmental practices either-they're just not great. Conventional brewers like Anheuser Busch and Coors Brewing Company are less than ideal for a number of reasons-first, the crops from which they get their primary ingredients (barley and hops) are massive (they are massive companies after all, with massive demand to meet) and they use toxic pesticides to on all of them. Now, they're of course using EPA approved pesticides (we hope), but small, toxic traces nonetheless remain in the ingredients right up until bottling. Also, pesticides can find their way into habitats surrounding the crops and cause damage to the local animal life. According to the American Bird Conservancy, "approximately 670 million birds are exposed to the pesticides used in farming annually, and 10 percent of these birds die as a result." Additionally, their factories and worldwide shipping efforts are far from sustainable. In other words, stick to local breweries and craft breweries, and you'll be supporting the green guys.
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