Brewery Taps Into The Environment And Creates Zero-Waste Beer

Hopefully more breweries will hop on this idea.

Northern Monk Brew Co. in Leeds, England, has crafted Wasted, a zero-waste beer.

The pear farmhouse ale — which was created in collaboration with The Real Junk Food Project, a group that runs a series of “pay as you feel” cafes that make meals out of food that would have been thrown out — is made out of reclaimed or recycled pears, croissants and brioche. The 6.7 ABV brew’s Champagne yeast is used in other beers while the hops and malt used in its production is donated to a local farm to be used as feed and fertilizer. The bottle is even made of 100 percent recyclable glass.

“Brewing beer naturally creates waste so we wanted to find a way to change that,” Russell Bisset, brewery founder, told Metro UK. “We saw this as an opportunity to challenge pre-conceived notions of what beer can be made with and highlight the kinds of products that go to waste on a daily basis.”

Other beer-makers have also been brewing up sustainable ideas. Saltwater Brewery in Delray Beach, Florida, has created edible six-pack rings that are safe for marine life to eat if the rings happen to end up in the ocean. Sierra Nevada’s Chico, California, brewery has 10,751 solar panels on its roof, which supplies 20 percent of the brewery’s electricity. And The MillerCoors factory in Golden, Colorado, reuses or recycles all the waste it produces ― which is about 135 tons of trash each month.

Reason enough to raise a beer and toast!

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