Sustainability and beer, a tough match

In the last decade, we witnessed the boom of two phenomenons in the wine and beer industry. 

Two movements which stemmed from the principles of small scale production and the search for quality.

These movements gave life to hundreds of organic wineries and craft breweries.  

Wineries tend to lean towards a storytelling approach of their products, discussing the natural properties and refusal of chemical products.

Breweries, on the other hand, don’t recount the same factors when differentiating themselves from their industrial counterpart. 

This does not mean that beer craft and sustainability are mutually exclusive. 

There is in fact a small niche of craft beers which are organic. However, this movement has yet to be developed as that of organic wines. 

What is the reason for this setback with beer?

SOME LEGAL INFORMATION

Before diving into why it is so hard to find an organic counterpart and whether it makes sense to talk about beer and sustainability, let’s clear some things up.

What’s the difference between craft beer and farmhouse beer?

According to article DdL S.1328-B of 2016 craft beer is “produced in a craft brewery, which will produce no more than 200.000 hectoliters of beer yearly….Not subjected to pasteurization or microfiltration.”

It should also be noted that craft beer does not undergo pasteurization or microfiltration. 

On the other hand, a farmhouse brewery is considered by law (Decreto Ministeriale 212/2010) to be a brewery that grows and produces at least 51% of their malt internally. 

No only does farmhouse brewing have advantages in terms of taxation, choosing to adopt this specific brewing style proves beneficial for the environment as a whole.

Also, in terms of sustainability, farmhouse breweries have fewer food miles since most of the production of the raw ingredients is internal.

This will also have a positive impact on the consumer as they will have a better awareness of the origin of the product. 

Farmhouse breweries can also apply for the “Birragricola” trademark , a seal of origin and quality established by the Italian Consortium of Barley and Beer (also referred to as COBI). 

This trademark guarantees that at least 70% of the malt used for beer production is cultivated by the brewery. It also ensures specific agricultural practices and supply of local ingredients.

As a result, we can consider farm breweries to be a subcategory of craft breweries. 

Craft breweries, however, represent only a small portion of the brewing world, as large industrial companies compete for control over the market.

MALT, HOP AND WATER: SOME DATA

The discussion on sustainability in the world of brewing a complex one for many reasons. First and foremost; the exploitation of natural resources which goes into beer production.

Wine, for instance, does not require as much water in the viticulture and vinification processes as beer does in both agriculture and the composition of the beverage itself.

Also, as long as you import all the ingredients, you can make beer in every country of the world.

This means that based on the place where you produce, there will be a heavier or lighter ecological footprint.

Taking Italy as an example, the country imported 144,896.220 tons of malt in 2018, mainly from France and Germany, against an internal production of 80,000 tons, and almost 100% of hops, with 3,320.830 tons imported.

Both imports have grown from the previous year. 

Besides increasing the internal production of malt and hop, an alternative or solution could be to use stale bread, replacing part of the malt needed to make beer, just like Biova beers from a brew firm in Melle, in Piedmont, or AncestrAle from Alta Quota brewery in Rieti, in Lazio or Ibrida in Milan.

By these means, breweries can also tackle food waste, a big problem in our society these days.

Water, however, remains the main problem to face when we talk about sustainability in brewing.

You need from 45L to 150L to produce 1L of beer, 90% of which is used in agriculture for barley, to make malt, and hop. 

A report by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) of 2009, says that the South African brewery SABMiller, acquired by AB InBev, needed 155L of water to make 1L of their beers. 

This is an incredible number when we think about the big scale production of companies like this one.

So how can we reduce the use of water? 

There are two main ways: first of all, focusing on better water stewardship to maintain and protect the resource; a goal which AB InBev set in their 2018 production report in line with the “2025 Sustainability Goals”

With this program, the company would collaborate directly with farmers to introduce better technologies in agriculture and a better way to manage water resources, as mentioned previously.

(Source://www.ab-inbev.com/content/dam/universaltemplate/ab-inbev/investors/reports-and-filings/annual-and-hy-reports/2019/190321_AB%20InBev%20RA2018%20EN.pdf5)

The other way to reduce water waste is to maximize wastewater recycle, which could be reused in agriculture. 

There is existing machinery that can recycle a maximum of 90% of wastewater in a brewery. 

Using this technology will be more important than ever in the future, especially when thinking of the scale of production for larger companies. 

As an example of scale, Ab InBev produced 561 million hectoliters of beer in 2019.

(Source: https://www.statista.com/statistics/269111/production-volume-of-anheuser-busch-inbev-worldwide/ ) 

LACK OF ORGANIC

Organic solutions exist, but they are limited for different reasons: farm breweries are still quite rare, so we don’t have many companies who grow their own ingredients to make beer. Big breweries choose to collaborate with farmers, rather than harvesting the ingredients themselves. 

This leads to a lack of control during the cultivation phase of raw material. Going green or converting fields to organic operations are an expensive solution for farmers and they are discouraged as their harvests would yield less produce. 

Of course, they will be paid more for the raw material, but changes and adaptation of new technologies are not always a welcome solution.

Moreover, in some countries like the USA, it’s very hard and rare to find organic ingredients to make beer: in 2016, just the 0,01% of hops and the 0,02% of barley were grown organically. 

These numbers are so low that they prove irrelevant for any statistic. Additionally, organic harvest increases the costs of the entire production chain. Large breweries can spend more money on green efforts, but the same can’t happen with small craft breweries who don’t have the economic power to face higher costs.

With the increasing knowledge of environmental harm that goes into beer production, it is possible that the future entails more conversation and exposure of organic beers.

Further supported by  the Sustainable Development Goals for 2030 by the Food and Agriculture Organization, ensuring that all companies, especially F&B companies minimize their use of resources natural resources to have a more ethical industrial development.