Craft breweries are often extremely mindful of earth- friendliness and are often on the cutting edge of green initiatives. Colorado’s own Denver Beer Co. is one business that has found a way to clean up its waste by transforming it into something useful.
Denver Beer brews about 20,000 barrels of beer per year and as many are aware, fermentation creates carbon dioxide, which is a chief contributor to climate change. Charlie Berger, co- owner of Denver Beer, says there is a means to transform the carbon dioxide into a useful form that can be used by specific companies.
“Our new technology allows us to hook a hose up to this fermentation tank and put it through a dryer, a filter and a compressor,” said Berger. “It creates a liquid gas that we can actually use.”
Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas and is generally something to avoid, but as many might recall from high school biology class, plants need carbon dioxide to grow. And what plant- growing business is commonplace in Colorado? Marijuana, of course. Kaitlin Urso, Environmental Consultant for small businesses through the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, says beer and marijuana are two things found in abundance across the Centennial state.
“It really was a perfect pairing, especially for Colorado. We’ve got a lot of breweries. We got a lot of cannabis operations,” said Urso.
Not far from Denver Beer company is a business known as The Clinic. It’s a business involved in medical and recreational cannabis and it grows its marijuana in a Denver warehouse. In the past, The Clinic purchased its carbon dioxide from power plants, but Denver Beer company offers a better, closer alternative, as Brian Cusworth, Director of Operations at The Clinic explains.
“So the really good thing about this project is that Denver Beer Company is only eight miles away,” said Cusworth. “So the transportation footprint has been reduced dramatically as well.”
Urso is optimistic that the pilot program between Denver Beer and The Clinic will prove practical and beneficial to both sides and will eventually spread to other breweries and cannabis operations.
“We can do it cost-effectively, with environmental benefits,” Urso said. “So we want to replicate this process. We’re encouraging more breweries and more cultivations, and helping them connect them along the way.”
Across the United States, about 20- 25 breweries have adopted this technology. Denver Beer is the first business to find a buyer for its carbon dioxide but it won’t be the last. Wineries and distilleries also produce excess CO2 so if the technology works for breweries, there is no reason it can’t also work for these other fermentation- oriented businesses.
Cutting carbon dioxide emissions is a worthwhile goal for any business. The amount of greenhouse gas emitted by most craft breweries is small, relatively speaking, compared to some of the major industrial offenders. But every little bit helps and it’s cool to see craft breweries like Denver Beer take the lead in adopting this technology.
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