Boot and Brews News #2: Conservation

A clink of the pint to you, dear reader, for joining Beers at the Bottom for its second weekly Boots and Brews News! The foundation of our website is the common space shared by craft beer and outdoor exploration. It’s a space that has become so natural, I have a hard time not finishing every hike with a beer, and always seem to picture a mountainous landscape when I drink a pint.

For this week’s post, I’m going to start with a topic that both share: conservation. Sustainability is a big topic in the craft beer world, with innovation at work to conserve water, reduce the carbon footprint, and find alternative energy. As craft beer drinkers, there are ways we can help this effort, and sometimes it just comes down to making a choice between bottles or cans.

There’s conflicting information out there over which is technically the more eco-friendly option. At the bottom of this post I’ve linked to Brendan Koerner’s excellent article which takes this issue to task thoroughly. His conclusion though, is that the most eco-friendly option is to just drink a draft right in the taphouse. See? Yet another reason to have those beers at the bottom.

If you do choose to bring beers along though, the clear choice for lightweight transportation is a can. We’ve written about this before, in our article “Beers in the Backpack”, so check that out for a further read (and some suggested local brews!). Cans are becoming more popular in the craft beer world--in the fall of 2013, we had to search a few specialty stores to stir up our beer suggestions. Now though, cans have found a space on the shelf right next to their bottled brothers.

Courtesy of Carlsberg Group

Today, I want to share with you another option out there. The Green Fiber Bottle from ecoXpac is a wood fiber based bottling option that is fully biodegradable. YES! Denmark Brewery Carlsberg has recently partnered with ecoXpac to develop a green fiber bottle to package their beer in, a project that is going to take place over the next three years. These bottles will essentially be a cross between cardboard and egg carton in composition, coated with a biodegradable sealant to keep them from, well, getting soggy on the shelf.

I went a little research happy, including watching this informative YouTube video, which I will admit is a smidge long.

I think what I was most excited for about the project, the thing I latched onto that might make this a viable choice for packaging beer, is the fact that existing bottling lines will not have to change to accommodate these bottles. It's simply a re-branding of packaging--not a ground up rebuild of a facility.

Readers, we love hearing from you. What are your thoughts on conservation in the craft beer world? Are you embracing canned craft beer, stowing them in backpacks to enjoy in the great outdoors? Would you be willing to pay just a little more for a beer if it meant that the packaging could get thrown into the compost bin?

No beer of the week unfortunately-- I’m on antibiotics. Let’s share a pint together next week when I’m right as rain once more.

Further Reading:

• Tapped in: Craft breweries usher in a beer can revival-  Fortune, article by Chris Morris
  
• Carlsberg may soon be serving beer in cardboard bottles-  Quartz, article by Anne Quito
  
• Carlsberg Press release 
  
• Wear Green, Drink Greenly- Slate, article by Brendan Koerner