Brewery Reflects, Respects Natural Environment

Green design...I'll drink to that.

Hi Del the Cat. You can pour me a pint too! Spencer.

And it is a pretty good brew too!

So it seems that green beer isn't just for St. Patrick's day any more.

If this beer cost twice as much as a pint from a more conventional brewery, would you still buy it?

Hi bdfeldt. If it tastes as good as it sounds, then yes. I am, after all a life member of CAMRA. Spencer.

If these so-called green techniques provide a better tasting beer from the same ingredients, then perhaps it is worth the extra money. If it tastes the same or worse, green brewing doesn't appear to be a sound investment.

I have drank my share of Fat Tire ale, and it is good. It is good enough that I am willing to pay the $3.50 for a 16 oz. bottle, but I would rather pay $2.50.

From reading the article, it appears that most of the "green" techniques are just modern, high-efficiency machines, which would reduce the cost of the product. The only place they have messed up is by putting clean water into the sewer system, and by using expensive and inefficient wind power.

Hi bdfeldt. I agree with you, some of these so-called green techniques are a load of rubbish, but not all. Where I live in the UK is called the Black Country, it was where the industrial revolution started, and a lot of the local pubs brew their own beer at the back of their establishments. Some of their beers are world aclaimed, and a few of them are the so-called premium beers. Their alcohol by volume (ABV) can be as high as 91/2%, but mostly it is about 41/2 to 6%. The flavours of these beers vary greatly, from the mild fruity to the rich chocolate and caramel. I pay from $3 to $5 for a pint of these types of beer, but the price variation is because of the difference in ABV. Spencer.

I am fortunate enough to be in a part of America that was heavily populated by German immigrants, so there have always been many small-town breweries nearby. Almost all have "tasting rooms" open to the general public. Even so, the brewpub is a relatively new phenomenon around here. I welcome it with open arms, because it has vastly improved the quality and variety of beer available, and forces the local breweries (and to some extent the large ones like Miller and Anheuser-Busch) to be more creative and put more quality in their products.

Hi bdfeldt. I had guessed by your name that your forfathers must have been German or Dutch. Here in the UK we have had brew pubs for the last 2,000 years, in fact the word "Tavern" (pub) comes from the old latin "Tabernae", for a house or establishment that sells wine or beer. When the Romans came here in 54BC they brought with them wine, but they soon got used to the local brew, Beer, and drank huge amounts of it. This beer was unhoped ie, sweet beer, and was brewed on the premises, the locals drank beer because it was boiled and thus better than drinking the local water which was poluted by sewerage. The large brewery concerns did not start until about the 1700s, this put a lot of local brewers out of business. Nowadays though it is the local micro-breweries that are putting the large breweries out of business. Here in the Black Country we have 7 brew pubs that are older that 300 years, and they are still going from strength to strength. Mind you, when I am in Germany I do like some of the obscure small brewers beers like "Pauliner" from Munich. Spencer.