Brew Responsibly: It’s Our New Year’s Resolutions to You
As the New Year approaches we look forward to the future, and putting 2020 as far (far) behind us as possible. Since the very beginning, AVBC has dedicated itself to brewing sustainably. But we can always do more, and in the coming year we resolve to do exactly that. As a family-owned brewery it’s important that we create a sustainable business that our children, and perhaps theirs, will someday be proud to call their own. Responsible brewing is our commitment to you this (and every) holiday season. Cheers!
A Resolution for Clean Water:
Water is the most important ingredient in beer. All of our water is sourced from 10 on-site wells and treated on the property. After the brewing process, our water is treated and discharged back into the water table, using solar powered pumps to create a zero-impact water usage system.
A Resolution for Sustainable Energy
We’ve been a partially solar powered brewery for nearly 20 years and in 2021 we are going to be expanding our solar array to cover 100% of our power needs—generating all of our power needs on the property through sustainable energy. We’re also planning on having some energy to spare and will be contributing more power than we use. Should the need arise, our neighbors in the Anderson Valley will be able to count on us through our net power contribution and our work with PG&E to become a regional resource location in the event of public safety power outages in our area.
A Resolution for Clean Air
To combat climate change we installed an environmentally inert nitrogen generator which harvests nitrogen gas from the ambient air and allows us to use it in place of CO2 for production gas, which replaces 70-80% of our CO2 usage and eliminates usage of a greenhouse gas and usage of a corrosive and potentially hazardous substance. This process also eliminates transportation costs and the carbon impact of delivery trucks.
A Resolution of Reduction
In the new year we’ll be moving exclusively to recycled cardboard packaging and 100% aluminum—which will allow us to reduce trucks on the road and drop our cardboard usage by up to 70%. No more plastic six-pack rings also means we will eliminate all plastic from our packaging. Bonus: it looks better and is easier to stack in your fridge.
Taken together, these efforts significantly reduce our environmental impact moving us closer towards our goal of becoming a “zero impact brewery”.
