Posted on June 7, 2011 by halzpal
Green home brewing?
I have brewed beer since the very early 1990’s and I love the hobby dearly, but a couple years back, I nearly gave it up. The soaring price of propane nearly drove me away. This series of posts is the direct result of my decision to keep brewing but to try it differently.
I mean “green” in a two senses, both related to that decision. Most obvious today, green means a focus on our environment. Home brewing should fit into our Big Picture, however we define it. I want home brewing to be a sensible and sustainable hobby for a long time, after we run out of cheap oil, after industrialized agriculture, maybe even after refrigeration. In the distant future, maybe all beer will be “warm and flat” like British ale. That sense of green is the Long Haul, abstract, maybe ultimately spiritual.
But the other sense of green is as close as the cash in my wallet. I started brewing when I was a college student. I had taste for expensive imported beer but wasn’t interested in paying top dollar for it. Looking back, I’ve probably been interested in good, cheap beer all along. Bad beer is never a bargain. I was angered by the cost of the propane as much as its impact on my carbon footprint.
Green home brewing is economically AND ecologically smart.
I started brewing in the days before the internet, when the only reliable wisdom came from Papa Papazian’s little book
