Breweries in New England with solid environmental policies are being recognized as “green beverage producers” via the BetterBev Recognition program. The distinctions are being awarded by the UMass Boston Green Brewery Project as part of a coalition of New England states receiving support from Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Pollution Prevention (P2) Grants.
BetterBev was created to help beverage producers fully understand their environmental practices, principles, and impact, with the goal of reducing production inefficiencies, improving health and safety, and conserving natural resources. Recognition is earned after a beverage producer’s state oversight organization works with them to perform an audit and assessment of their environmental practices and impact. The process covers criteria ranging from water use to energy efficiency and conservation to waste reduction and even environmental culture.
About 50 or so of the region’s more than 600 breweries have earned recognition so far — recent announcements include Untold Brewing, Portico Brewing, Remnant Brewing, Lamplighter Brewing, and Cambridge Brewing Co. Let’s keep the recognition going! Here’s what these green beverage producers are doing right.
Untold Brewing
Established in 2017, Untold Brewing is a leading independent craft brewery based in Scituate, MA. Founded by town native, Matt Elder, the brewery has grown to regional attention, with their focus on clean, high-quality ales and lagers. Their production brewery features a renovated 1852 one-room schoolhouse as a taproom, plus a production space, patio and lawn just steps from the Greenbush commuter rail station and historic Scituate Harbor.
Among the factors that make Untold Brewing one of the state’s most environmentally conscious breweries is a culture of efficiency led by head brewer and sustainability lead Pete Weafer. Through steadfast water conservation measures his brewing team has achieved a water-to-beer ratio of just 3.5 to 1, less than half the industry average for mid-sized breweries.
And it’s not just water conservation Untold excels at, it also takes admirable measures to decrease the strength of its wastewater before discharging to the local treatment plant. The organic solids from the brewing process, including yeast and hop residue, are side-streamed and composted while all the spent grain goes to a local farm for animal feed.
Untold has also been an industry leader in the reduction of plastic waste, earning a Reduce, Reuse, Repair Grant from the Massachusetts Department of Environment Protection to implement a consumer take-back program that rescues and reuses some 25,000 can carriers annually. It also piloted a reusable pallet wrap operating procedure that diverts more than 16,000 feet of plastic stretch wrap from the waste stream. Combined, the two measures save the brewery nearly $5,000 in packaging costs and waste hauling fees each year.
The decrease in plastic waste also means fewer harmful emissions impacting local air quality as a result of landfill or incineration. Additionally, Untold has significantly reduced its need for purchased CO2 used in various brewhouse operations. By implementing industry best practices and adjusting SOPs, the Untold team has lowered its use by some 40% and continues to make year-over-year improvements.
Portico Brewing & Remnant Brewing
Somerville’s Portico Brewing is inspired by architecture and design of all kinds, and its approachable beers are made for everyone to enjoy. Its focus is to rethink traditional styles and create beers with classic ingredients and careful technique. Formerly a contract brand, Portico debuted its own brewery and community focused taproom near the Somerville-Cambridge line in Massachusetts in spring of 2023.
Portico’s Environmental Handprint initiatives range from adopting dozens of newly planted neighborhood trees to working toward official bike-friendly business certification to raising money and awareness for its local watershed associations. In honor of Earth Month, Portico recently released Earth Hour Hazy Pale Ale, an environmentally conscious beer featuring 100% local ingredients that was brewed with a significantly lower carbon footprint than most other beers.
Also in Somerville, Remnant Brewing has an inclusive space in Bow Market and strives for both excellent product, beer and coffee, as well as excellent service. Its Satellite location at the former Atwood’s Tavern in Cambridge offers a vibrant café with coffee by day and a fully stocked bar with signature cocktails and Remnant’s artisanal beer at night.
Remnant has undertaken a number of environmentally focused efforts as well, highlighted in its Malt Memoirs blog. In addition to recently brewing its own 100% local ingredient beer, an earthy Table Saison called Petite Pepite, its all-electric brewhouse produces significantly fewer Scope 1 emissions (those created on-site from fuel combustion, for example) than most breweries. The brewing staff has also decreased its use of caustic and acid cleaners and sanitizers through highly efficient SOPs, and its canned beer is packaged with rescued and reused can carriers as a result of the taproom’s highly successful consumer take-back program.
Together, through operational efficiencies and environmentally conscious decision making, these two Somerville breweries have decreased their hazardous chemical use by some 75 pounds and lowered their emissions by more than 30 Metric Tons of CO2e annually. The former helps to lessen the load on Metro Boston’s wastewater treatment facility while the latter equates to the amount of carbon sequestered by 35 acres of U.S. forest in one year, according to the EPA’s Greenhouse Gas Equivalencies Calculator.
Lamplighter & Cambridge Brewing
Lamplighter Brewing is a Cambridge-based brewery with two taproom locations just over the river from Boston. Its focus is on aroma-packed and flavor-driven beers, with an emphasis on New England IPAs, barrel-aged sours, and special seasonals. Lamplighter has long been a leader in sourcing local ingredients, with a significant amount of its hops coming from Four Star Farms in Northfield, MA and nearly half of its malt from Valley Malt in Holyoke, MA or Blue Ox Malthouse in Maine.
In addition to supporting local agriculture, much of which uses regenerative techniques rather than industrial farming methods, it decreases the brewery’s scope 3 (supply chain) greenhouse gas emissions. Lamplighter also excels in waste reduction, with three-stream waste collection (trash, recycling, compost) in the taproom, a consumer take-back program for its can carriers, and a unique can label liner recycling program. It’s recent community partnership with Climable supported the nonprofit’s mission to make climate science and clean energy understandable and actionable for everyone.
Cambridge’s original brewery, CBC, has been thinking about sustainability for longer than most breweries have been in business. Founded in 1989, CBC is the oldest brewery-restaurant in the Boston area and one of the nation’s first.
They’ve sourced renewable wind power from Constellation Energy for more than a decade, and recently contracted with a community solar farm to lower their energy footprint even further. Additional measures include a highly efficient heat pump for temperature controls in the taproom and restaurant, LED lighting practically everywhere, and food scrap collection that sends all organic waste to an anaerobic digester. CBC beer is always served in proper reusable glassware, even on its outdoor patio, and it is one of the few breweries that still offers refillable growlers for takeaway.
For a list of the oversight organizations responsible for managing the green beverage producer program in each New England state visit the BetterBev website.
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