The green beer that isn’t and the goat that is
March 25, 2008 by edcharles
Mountain Goat has established an enviable reputation for being green. Staff are incentivised to cycle to work. There are solar panels on the roof. Oh, and the beer is pretty good too.
It must be irksome when brewing giant Fosters comes along with Cascade Green, as reported in The Age by beer writer Willie Simpson:
“[Cascade Green] claims to be preservative-free and to use glass that is “the lightest weight, highest recycled content currently available in Australia”. Both are probably true but they neglect important qualifications – namely, that the beer is still presumably made with stabilisers and other additives, commonly used by mainstream breweries, and is both heat-pasteurised and filtered. Both these processes use a lot of energy and Cascade Green is then packaged in a slim 330-millilitre bottle that requires proportionately more energy to fill than something larger.”
I’d like to preface this with the disclaimer that I have been involved with the ad agency promoting Cascade Green.
The claim that Fosters are making is that this is a 100% carbon offset beer. Mountain Goat don’t claim this about their microbrews. They have stated that they are aiming to lighten their brewery’s carbon footprint, which isone of the reasons why they deserve respect. However as they buy hops they cannot influence the carbon offset involved in harvesting etc.
Cascade is also not claiming to be an organic beer, just locally sourced.
Cascade:
‘From the picking of the hops through to the recycling of the bottle, Cascade
claims 100% of the greenhouse gas emissions associated with the process of
producing Cascade Green are offset, meaning the net impact of emissions for the beer is zero.’
‘The beer has achieved Australian Government Greenhouse Friendly certification.’
‘Cascade has been driving environmental improvements for the past 10 years and has won a number of environmental awards, including three Tasmanian Awards for Environmental Excellence and the Cleaner Business Challenge Award 2003. In the past six years, the brewery claims to have cut greenhouse gas emissions by 16% and reduced water usage by 30% per unit of production.’
I much prefer the taste of the Goat – as you know – but this drop isn’t bad either.