Sierra Nevada Brewing Company and E-Fuel Corp have joined forces to create a high-grade, inexpensive ethanol fuel.

They plan to make fuel from discarded beer yeast using the Efuel 100 MicroFueler. The first-ever home ethanol systems will be housed at the brewery in Chico, California.

With the ever increasing number of craft brews hitting shelves in recent years, choosing an ale can be a difficult decision. Each crafty label seems coded somehow to project the underlying character traits of the person indulging. Unibroue, for swarthy Francophiles. Brooklyn, for the hip crowd harkening their home borrough. New Belgium for outdoorsy sorts who prefer to pedal and paddle. And Full Sail, for those beer enthusiasts who are simply paying attention.

This week, Oregon’s Full Sail Brewing Company received the Governor’s Sustainability Award for small business in recognition of the company’s ever increasing commitment to the community and the environment.

Investigations at the University of Porto show that marinating beef in red wine or beer may reduce the levels of potentially cancer-promoting compounds in cooked meat.

Using beer or red wine marinades reduced the level of heterocyclic amines in pan fried beef by up to 88 per cent. Heterocyclic amines, formed during the browning of meat and fish, are reported to promote carcinogenesis in humans. So marinading possibly has the [...]

New Belgium Brewing Company already topped lists of sustainable beers.  Its reputation and practices earned Chief Branding Officer Greg Owsley a talk at last June’s Sustainable Brands Conference.  And now, the Colorado-based company has released its first sustainability report, which includes a life cycle analysis of a Fat Tire six-pack.

Triple Bottom Line

New Belgium’s sustainability report highlights what sustainable businesses call their “triple bottom line” - people, planets, and profits.  With companies from different sectors starting to embrace sustainability (e.g., Toyota and GE), New Belgium’s market share success provides more evidence for green business as good business.  The new report describes New Belgium’s ongoing and planned environmental and social initiatives, including renewable energy use, green building design, increased brewing efficiency, and a philanthropic bike festival (Tour de Fat).

Colleges have always been a primary point of rally for green initiatives.  Now, a threat to malting barley has created a new call for support as the price and availability of beer is being threatened by climate change according to a study conducted and released in 2008.

The potential for the alcohol industry to be effected by climate change has been a concern for some time, but it is hitting a feverish pitch and garnering support and calls to action from campuses across the country.  In Lawrence, Kansas, Greenpeace volunteers held a recruitment event called “Save the Ales” earlier this week to tackle how global warming effects college drinking.

Hydrogen fuel cells have long been hailed as the next big thing to replace petroleum in cars, but there is one major problem: hydrogen is usually produced from fossil fuels. Fortunately, a multitude of companies are looking at alternative hydrogen sources— including sewage and dough.

My apologies for what seems like a blatant advertisement for New Belgium Brewery, but after seeing the Fort Collins, Colorado microbrewery’s latest coaster/postcard, I couldn’t resist snapping these photos and posting them for you. New Belgium is known for not only its excellent beers, but also for its progressive social and environmental policies, and its quirky advertisements - as is evidenced by the following photos:

December 5th is Repeal Day. That day back in 1933 that ended those dark days of “The Great Experiment” that failed. For those who where sleeping during American History class, the Volstead Act was repealed by the Amendment XXI to the US Constitution:

AMENDMENT XXIPassed by Congress February 20, 1933. Ratified December 5, 1933.

Section 1.
The eighteenth article of amendment to the Constitution of the United States is hereby repealed.

Section 2.
The transportation or importation into any State, Territory, or Possession of the United States for delivery or use therein of intoxicating liquors, in violation of the laws thereof, is hereby prohibited.

Section 3.
This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by conventions in the several States, as provided in the Constitution, within seven years from the date of the submission hereof to the States by the Congress.

Beer and alligators?  Sounds like a dangerous mix, or, at the very least, the beginning of a bad Cajun joke. For Anheuser-Busch’s (whoops… Anheuser-Busch InBev’s) Jacksonville, FL brewery and turf farm, this mix of wildlife and business has been standard for eleven years.  The Jacksonville facility is one of ten A-B operations certified as Wildlife at Work (SM) sites by the Wildlife Habitat Council.

The WHC is a twenty-year-old partnership between corporations (A-B was a founding member) and environmental organizations (the American Farmland Trust, Izaak Walton League of America, National Wildlife Federation and World Wildlife Fund). The organization was founded in order to “…[help] large landowners, particularly corporations, manage their unused lands in an ecologically sensitive manner for the benefit of wildlife.” The Wildlife at Work program not only certifies wildlife restoration programs, but also provides step-by-step training for companies interested in making unused lands more friendly to animal and plant life.

This is a guest post by John Simonetta, owner of Proforma Simonetta Freelance, an eco-friendly promotional items consultancy (see proformagreen.com). John’s blogs are designed to keep us up to date on the “greening” of his industry

I like beer. I like pubs.

I guess that is why I am still talking about eco-friendly coasters. As I mentioned before we are doing some research on eco-friendly coasters for Intrepid Travel and now that research has lead me to cork coasters.

And this is the thing, cork has been around forever. According to the dictionary the origin of the word itself dates from between 1275–1325 AD.

This is an old material, but how many of us think of it as a green material? Hemp and Jute have also been around for a long, long time and they are considered green. Why not cork?

The thing that got me thinking about this are these core coaster from Americanna. When I asked Americanna if they had an eco-friendly coaster they immediately came back with cork.

This is a guest post by John Simonetta, owner of Proforma Simonetta Freelance, an eco-friendly promotional items consultancy (see proformagreen.com). John’s blogs are designed to keep us up to date on the “greening” of his industry

I wrote a little while ago about paper products with flower seeds in them and whether I thought they were green or not.

Well recently in doing some research for Intrepid Travel - a very cool, very green client - I located these eco-friendly bar coasters made of a paper from recycled linen and embedded with flower seeds.

So in this instance the coasters are green to start with and the added flower seeds are a selling point. Anyway, I think these things are genius, I mean really what a great idea.

I think I am so taken with them because trying to get a green theme into a bar setting is normally a challenge, but these coasters are green, practical and cheap. Just perfect.