Unleashing the Power of the Pint

We here at antenna enjoy seeing people take waste problems and turn them into solutions—people like Wolfgang Bengal, who looked dreamily into his glass of stout and saw a way to power breweries on their own grain slops. Waste-powered breweries would mean less waste carted off in trucks to landfills, and recovery of up to 50% of the energy it takes to make your favourite brew from the very muck it produces. That’s a greener pint.

Here’s how it works: the grain first has to be dried, treated and then burned in a controlled environment to create steam and biogas, and these can in turn be harnessed to provide power for the brewery. Of course anything involving combustion raises a carbon-conscious eyebrow with us, but apparently the addition of cleaning and filtering equipment has passed muster with the German environmental protection agency TÜV, so perhaps cautious optimism is in order.

Wondering how waste-conscious your pint is? Take a look at Greenopia’s ratings of the environmental impact of the world’s 15 largest breweries which came out earlier this month.

Image: tomilym -flickr