Skip to main content

How Companies Are Closing the Sustainability Loop in the Drinks Industry

When there’s talk of real sustainability, closing the loop is a phrase often called into action. It’s a reference to growing ingredients in a way that recycles and reuses everything involved and created in the process. The result is waste-free and quite kind to the environment.

Farmers of all kinds are looking to close or at least tighten up their loops. Whether they’re raising wine grapes, hops, or potatoes, folks in agriculture are starting to think more like stewards of the land. When the land gives the grower so much, returning the favor seems more than rational.

Related Videos

But there’s more to closing the loop than just being kind to resident soils, minimizing inputs, and being cognizant of climate change. A lot of industries, like spirits and beer, yield a fair amount of byproducts. Throwing them in the waste pile or letting them idle creates a fracture in the loop. Now more than ever, producers are finding creative uses for their byproducts, both on their own and with the help of intrepid new companies.

In the Twin Cities, Netzro has taken advantage of the pandemic in unexpected ways. With more people baking at home, the women-run company is finding ways to deliver flour blends made with spent grain from breweries and distilleries to eager people mostly stuck at home.

Netzro is the first outfit of its kind in the nation to take on the spent grain used in the spirit-making process. It’s working with the used rye grains from Tattersall Distilling, converting the excess into edible forms of fiber and protein and working it into flour. And because of the brewing and distilling processes, the resulting flavor is distinctive and can impart some truly unique qualities to breads, pastries, and other baked goods.

Reusing spent grain is not entirely new, especially in craft beer. Brewers continue to use the stuff as animal feed. But oftentimes the supply of the byproduct is greater than the need. Netzro pounced on this knowledge, looking for a way to close the loop in a way that would make the leftovers not just animal friendly, but palate-pleasing and ever-useful to people. The company is billing the stuff as upcycled spent grain and blending it with organic wheat. And it’s healthy stuff, with a relatively low carb count.

In beer, some producers will do a second run with their spent wort, creating a second, lighter ale often called a small beer. Anchor in San Francisco is one such outfit, reviving a method that dates back to the formative days of beer-making. Breweries with a lot of resident animals, like Blackberry Farm in Tennessee, rarely end up with excess byproducts as there are so many mouths to feed on the estate.

Up in Alaska, the state’s biggest brewery is using its spent grain to generate power. In 2011, Alaskan Brewing introduced a boiler that utilizes spent grain as a fuel source of sorts, becoming fully operational in 2012. The company claimed to be the first on the planet to incorporate such technology and did so with some help from the USDA.

The federal organization reported in 2017 that the brewery has used 65% less fuel via its brewing process. The old grain provides the power needed to dry fresh grain in the brewery. And the brewery no longer has to schlep the spent grain by barge to Washington. It stays in house as a loop-closing energy source.

California-based ReGrained has been repurposing spent brewer’s grain into snacks for several years now. The founders got their idea while homebrewing during college, put off by the roughly one pound mass of grain leftover from every six-pack of beer crafted. Before long, a company was born, focused on milling the nutritional byproduct into flavored puffs and bars.

It’ll be interesting to see the loop-closing trend spread into the spirits world and beyond. So much of what we sip on requires extensive farming and that process is something we can always improve, in the name of not just sustainability, but giving back to a supremely generous planet.

Editors' Recommendations

Benefits of ginger: 5 reasons why you should add it to your grocery list today
Learn how ginger could be an essential superfood for your diet
Ginger on cutting board.

All over the world,ginger is consumed in many ways; these include as a spice, in teas and soups, and more! No matter how you choose to enjoy the superfood, it cannot be denied that there are many benefits of ginger. Due to its anti-inflammatory, antibacterial, and antioxidant properties, there are five significant ways that ginger can positively affect your health.

It doesn’t require a lot of ginger to make a difference, either! Three to four grams of ginger daily is optimal for the average healthy adult. Any more than this can lead to gastrointestinal distress and heartburn. So as long as you stay within the guidelines, you can include ginger in your diet in various ways and reap the many health benefits it provides.

Read more
The best tequilas you can buy for less than $20
These wallet-friendly tequilas taste much more expensive than they are
best tequilas under 20 espolon tequila

Tequila can start a party. It also can end one very quickly. Your focus should stay on those that can star at any gathering. A solid tequila doesn't have to break the bank, either. Also, keep this in mind when looking for quality tequila, affordable or not: Make sure it's 100% agave. Those headache-inducing tequilas of your past were more than likely only part agave -- they just need to be 51%. The additional sugar in those was likely your culprit.

All tequila hails from the Mexican state of Jalisco. All start as Blue Weber Agave and take a wonderful ride to reach their final destination on a drinker's palate. This Mexican spirit has a beautiful, rich history. The excellence of this well-made spirit can be witnessed even in inexpensive versions -- neat or mixed into a tasty margarita.

Read more
Is erythritol harmful? What a dietitian says new data means for your Keto diet
Erythritol is common in many keto foods - what does that mean for your health?
erythritol in keto diet advice

While sugar substitutes have been around for more than a century, they didn't really become mainstream here in the United States until around the mid-70s. According to Carolyn De La Pena, professor of American Studies at UC Davis and author of Empty Pleasures: The Story of Artificial Sweeteners from Saccharin to Splenda, between 1975 and 1984, Americans increased their consumption of artificial sweeteners by 150 percent. This timeline makes sense when you take into account that the late seventies coincided with the start of our crazed diet culture and the revolving door of fad diets.
One such diet that doesn't seem to be going anywhere, however, is the Keto diet. Still hugely popular among Americans trying to shed a few pounds, Keto focuses heavily on limited or no carbohydrates. Because sugar contains carbohydrates, followers of Keto have turned to artificial sweeteners to satisfy those late-night cravings - sweeteners that, more often than not, contain erythritol. Erythritol in particular has become hugely popular because it's much better for baking than other sugar substitutes, has less of an artificial flavor, and will keep the eater in Ketosis, which is key for losing weight on the Keto diet.
A new study has made waves recently because its findings indicate there's a link between erythritol and higher rates of heart attack and stroke (though the study did note that only an association was found — not causation. So should you be worried?
We asked Dan LeMoine, RD, the award-winning author of Fear No Food and the Clinical Director at Phoenix-based Re:vitalize Nutrition, what he had to say about erythritol, including its benefits and potential health risks. "Artificial sweeteners are still sweeteners. While many are non-nutritive or zero-calorie, we tend to view them similarly as we do regular sweeteners or sugars — moderation is key. While many have amazing implications on weight loss – being low to no-calorie options and having little impact on blood sugar, some have their downside," he says.

While some of that sugar substitution has been good for waistlines and health issues that come from obesity, it seems to be causing more and more concern when it comes to other potential health issues. "For example," says LeMoine, "some research indicates the popular sweeteners stevia may have negative effects on the gut microbiome. And the recent study showing correlation between the sugar alcohol, erythritol, and heart attack and stroke."

Read more