Green is Good!

March is a month of transition, changing seasons, and yes, green beer. March 17 is St. Patrick’s Day, and as the saying goes, “Everyone is Irish on St. Patrick’s Day!” So while you may see everyone and their cousin decked out in green on March 17, here at New Planet Brewing, we’re proud to say that we’re green every day.

Sure, green is one of our favorite colors, but when we say “green,” we mean that since our founding, we’ve desired to brew clean, refreshing, gluten-free and gluten-reduced beers that have a minimal impact on our environment.

Curious about how we stay green all year long? Keep reading!

Brewing is an Energy-Intensive Process

Transforming water, malt (or millet!), and hops into beer flowing from a can or tap to your glass takes a lot of skill and work. Ensuring the beer you drink is delicious, gluten-free or gluten-reduced, and fresh involves a lot of moving parts, and if it isn’t done carefully, it can use a lot of natural resources that affect the environment.

A few years ago, we decided to live our mission more fully by creating and joining a brewing co-op. This meant that instead of having our own dedicated brewhouse, we’d share a state-of-the-art facility with other like-minded breweries.

Why?

The answer was simple for a few reasons. First, building a brewery is expensive. You’re talking tanks, fermenters, hoses, fire mitigation, zoning requirements, canning equipment….the list goes on, and so does the bill! Secondly, breweries tend to take up a lot of land, and as mentioned above, they require a lot of equipment that draw significant amounts of energy.

So rather than spend millions of dollars on a facility just for ourselves, we thought, “Why can’t we share the expenses and in doing so, reduce our overall environmental footprint?” And that’s what we did. Today, we’re proud to be part of a brewing co-op that shares a phenomenal $8 million facility that crafts excellent beer for you, our consumer! This also translates to $8.99 6-packs in our home market and $10.99 per 6-packs nationally….one of the best-priced specialty beers in the market!

It Takes a Village

If you’ve ever been to a beer festival or know anyone who works in the industry, you know that it is a collaborative, knowledge-sharing community. Brewers are a different breed. Collectively, we know that the adage “A rising tide lifts all ships” applies to brewing. The success of one brewery means the success of many. In that spirit, brewers are often very transparent with their industry peers about what they’re working on and how they’re doing it.

This collaboration is at the heart of our co-op, too. By putting many talented brewers in the same space, the exchange of ideas, philosophies, and best-practices happens naturally and in a very business-friendly way.

By developing these close relationships with our peers, we’re able to provide our consumers with the best product out there…not only because we’ve toiled for thousands of hours, but because we’ve had honest, well-intentioned feedback from our beer brethren in order to make our beers the best gluten-free and gluten-reduced ones in the market.

Be Green!

Whether you’ll be partaking in St. Patrick’s Day or not this year, remember that you can stay green all-year long when you celebrate life’s moments with New Planet Beer. Our cans (which take up less energy to transport than bottles AND keep your beer fresher!) and kegs contain beer that was conscientiously brewed to be kinder and gentler on the environment. We’ll drink to that! As the Irish say, “Sláinte!”