How we chose the best sustainable beer brands
Sustainable living isn’t just about redecorating your wardrobe and home with low-impact goods. It also means stocking your pantry and fridge with sustainable foods and drinks.
When it comes to craft beer, sustainable business practices are often secondary to things like taste (duh) and alcohol content.
But there are countless ways to make brewing more sustainable without sacrificing any of these things, and some of the sustainable brewing companies in our list have adopted these methods.
So what is a sustainable beerand how can beer companies become more sustainable?
Ingredients and origin:
Some of the factors we look for are organic, non-GMO, and locally grown ingredients.
What is the difference between organic beer and regular beer?
Organic beer uses natural ingredients and resources with ethical farming, manufacturing and brewing processes.
Organic beer benefits the environment by not relying on biodiversity destruction and soil-depleting fertilizers and pesticides, and benefits drinkers by ensuring none of those chemicals linger in your lager.
But organic crops aren’t the only way to promote responsible drinking. Ingredients sourced from regenerative agriculture and upcycled grains are also on tap.
Supply Chain and Labor Practices:
In addition to sustainability certifications ensuring our brews are better for the planet, production certifications and transparent supply chains ensure they are better for employees too.
Fortunately, many of these sustainable breweries are 100% US-based, meaning all ingredients and brewing are done domestically under stricter labor guidelines.
Carbon Commitments and Green Business Practices:
Sustainable brewing can also use renewable energy sources, such as solar or wind energy, to power the brewing process.
Breweries doing their part to offset their carbon emissions and footprint are our favorite stops on our pub crawl. This could be renewable energy, carbon offset programs, solar and wind energy and anything else to reduce their carbon footprint.
Sustainable packaging:
Beer is often packaged in one-way packaging, such as aluminum cans and glass bottles. Fortunately, both are recyclable, although aluminum is somewhat preferable due to its lower weight and lower associated transport emissions.
Still, if you can, we recommend going straight to these breweries and opting for refill packs to cut down on packaging altogether.