Skip to main content

How Companies Are Closing the Sustainability Loop in the Drinks Industry

Image used with permission by copyright holder

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.

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.

Image used with permission by copyright holder

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.

Image used with permission by copyright holder

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

Mark Stock
Mark Stock is a writer from Portland, Oregon. He fell into wine during the Recession and has been fixated on the stuff since…
The best whiskey options to make your Manhattan drink recipe even better
Rye whiskey is classic, but not the only option
Manhattan

The Manhattan is one of the most well-known classic cocktails ever created. Like many famous mixed drinks, its history is a bit mysterious. One version of the story says that the drink was made at New York City’s Manhattan Club in the 1870s by a bartender named Iain Marshall. There is a mention of the drink in the later 1800s in a book written by bartender Wiliam F. Mulhall. Regardless of who created it, this whiskey-driven cocktail has stood the test of time.

Whiskey matters
This iconic drink is similar to the Old Fashioned, except instead of whiskey, sugar, water, and Angostura bitters, the Manhattan is made with whiskey, Angostura bitters, and sweet vermouth. While the other ingredients are important, the whisky is the key. The bitters add a bit of spice to the mix, and the vermouth adds a fruity sweetness, but the big, bold flavor is the whisky. The other ingredients are only there so the whiskey can shine through.

Read more
How to make the finest Tom Collins cocktail, according to experts
Take notes so you can add these cocktail recipes to your home bar repertoire
Fresh home made Tom Collins cocktails with lemon

For a drink that has its own glass, you'd think the Tom Collins cocktail would be even more popular. It's a classic, without a shadow of a doubt, but many imbibers don't exactly know how to whip one up, let alone perfect it.

The Tom Collins is a relatively simple drink. That said, you still need to do it right. All the little things become that much more important, from effervescence and temperature to the freshness of the citrus. Assemble it poorly, and the drink is just a grown-up lemonade. Prepare it professionally, and you have one of the most refreshing cocktails ever devised in your hand.

Read more
Bourbon snifters: What they’re good for, which bourbon you should drink from them, and more
Why you should have bourbon snifters, and what to drink from them
Snifter

If you’re new to bourbon, you probably pour your favorite whiskey into a rocks glass with or without ice and sip it while you binge-watch the newest show du jour on Netflix and call it good. And while that’s all well and good, as we aren’t here to tell anyone how to imbibe whiskey, you might not be enjoying it as much as you could be. That’s to say that there are whiskey glasses designed to elevate and heighten your whiskey-tasting experience.

Don’t believe us? Just take your classic rocks glass, for example. It’s fairly uniform and unexciting. It’s designed for cocktails. That’s because when you drink an Old Fashioned. Sazerac, or Whiskey Sour the experience is all about the various flavors the ingredients (when combined with whiskey) create.

Read more