Nothing ruins a beer buzz quite like the reality of climate change and the thought of our once beer-filled planet burning up in a gaseous fracked explosive mess.

But there’s good news—at least, good enough to make beer-drinking not seem so selfishly empty and depraved. 24 beer brewers across the U.S. are partnering up to cut greenhouse gas emissions (and still make delicious beer).

The breweries, including New Belgium Brewery, Guinness and Allagash Brewing Company, reports the Huffington Post, “have signed onto the Climate Declaration organized through the sustainable business group Ceres. The declaration pledges that each company will take its own action to reduce emissions from its business, and will also support political action at the national level.”

Jenn Vervier, director of strategy and sustainability at Ft. Collins, Colorado-based New Belgium Brewery, told the Huffington Post that action on climate change “makes a lot of sense” for the brewery, particularly because “it uses a lot of energy in heating, cooling and transportation, and uses a lot of water.” And while a hotter planet might seem like a strong reason to drink icy cold beer, it’s not exactly a party kind of vibe. Also, a hotter planet means a drier one and that means less water available to make delicious beer.

New Belgium is leading by example by installing 300 kilowatts of solar power at its brewery headquarters. It also captures methane generated by its operations, “which it then burns to generate 15 percent of its electricity,” the Huffington Post explains.

Vervier points out that the advocacy for national climate action also makes sense for brewers. “Even if we were to be ourselves climate neutral, it’s such a small drop in the bucket,” she said. “It’s going to take a cleaner grid to lower the emissions from manufacturing.”

Other breweries signing the declaration include: Aeronaut Brewing Company, The Alchemist, Aspen Brewing Company, Brewery Vivant, Bouy Beer Company, Chuckanut Brewery and Kitchen, Deschutes Brewery, Fort George Brewery and Public House, Fremont Brewing Company, Georgetown Brewing Co., Guinness, Hopworks Urban Brewery, Ninkasi Brewing Company, Odell Brewing, Rockford Brewing Company, Smuttynose Brewing Company, Snake River Brewing Co., Standing Stone Brewing Co., and Wet Dog Café & Brewery.

And if we can’t entice people to get on the climate neutral train with the prospect of more beer, then maybe we all deserve to shrivel up and dehydrate. But the declaration actually demonstrates that taking action to reverse climate change doesn’t mean we have to sacrifice luxuries (necessities?) like beer. In fact, it might even make each greedy gulp taste a whole lot better knowing that our beloved brews are making the planet a cleaner and greener place.

No beer goggles required for that vision. Just a straight up commitment to do good for the planet—and, for the love of all that’s holy—good beer. If climate change can do us any big favors, perhaps it’ll weed out all that bullshit beer that’s a disgrace to our preciously limited water. Just imagine that: a cleaner planet and better beer…

Find Jill on Twitter and Instagram

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Beer image via Shutterstock

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Kombucha, a fermented tea drink with probiotic properties, has become very popular over the past few years. Regular kombucha only has trace amounts of alcohol, but what happens if you up the ante?

One couple is finding out. Called Unity Vibration Triple Goddess, it’s a marriage of fresh-brewed kombucha, organic hops, and a medley of seasonal flavors. This kombucha beer is 95 percent organic, gluten-free, raw, vegan, and sourced from local producers whenever possible. But at 7 percent alcohol, you’ll be flying high after enjoying just a couple.

Rachel and Tarek Kanaan have been brewing kombucha since 2008 when they started selling their home brewed bliss out of a van in Santa Barbara. Their newest venture is actually a product of the couple’s unwillingness to sacrifice their beloved recipe.

“When kombucha tea was recalled a few years ago because of its alcohol content, we didn’t want to change our recipe,” says Rachel. “Instead we decided to become a microbrewery so we could continue to make kombucha tea the way we wanted to.”

A Healthier Beer

The process of fermenting kombucha tea naturally produces alcohol but only a very slight .5 to 1 percent. As a microbrewery the natural next step was to brew beer as well and see what happened when they were combined.

According to Tarek, kombucha beer is healthier than other beers because of the ingredients. Literally everything in it is good for you, from raw ginger to organic raspberries, as well the probiotics and phytonutrients.

The Kanaans now hope to bring healthy beer to the masses and thus far their delightful kombucha beer is being sold in California, Illinois, Maine, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, and Ohio. They’re constantly coming up with enlightened combos like raspberry, ginger, bourbon peach, and their signature Kombucha Pale Ale.

Brewing Beer With Intention

For the Kanaans, it’s all about intention. And this isn’t just a mission statement, it’s present in everything that they do. Each tank is named and has a positive mantra posted on its side. Rachel even blesses the tanks with Tibetan bowls because the couple believes you can create whatever you want in your life through positive intention–their kombucha beer is a product of that intention.

They’ve come a long way since selling kombucha from the back of their van. The couple eventually moved to Ypsilanti, MI, where they produced home brewed kombucha tea and later kombucha beer from a commercial kitchen in their 300 square foot basement. Today, they’ve expanded to a 2,400 square foot manufacturing facility in the same Michigan town but their emphasis is still on producing carefully home brewed kombucha goodness.

Related on EcoSalon:
Kombucha Closer
EcoSalon Recipes: DIY Kombucha from a Seasoned Expert
5 Delicious Ways to Get Your Probiotics

Image: Unity Vibration Kombucha Beer

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Usually, beer commercials are all about guys getting their drink on (as if women don’t like beer too) and women in them are wearing silly outfits and “being sexy”—usually without saying a word. It’s so common to see outright misogyny in beer ads that many of us have given up, and just shrug our shoulders or roll our eyes, and wait for the 30 seconds to be over.

But what if a beer ad was creative, appealing to men and women alike, and also inspiring? It’s not only possible, it’s happened. Here’s proof of how good (no, great) an ad for brewski can be.

 Related on Ecosalon: 

Bad Ads: Would You Like Some Crotch with Your Water?

Dove’s Real Beauty Ad Celebrates Outer Beauty

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So many microbrews…so little time.

Two of Portland’s favorite pastimes? Beers and bikes, which is why it makes sense that the two would come together in a guidebook, intended not just for tourists but locals with an affinity for exploring the wide world of microbrews on two wheels. Hop in the Saddle is just that guidebook.

Whereas most guidebooks focus simply on destinations, Hop in the Saddle is just as much about how to get there as what to do when you arrive.

“Cycling is the best way to explore any city. You’re out in the open instead of being hidden inside a vehicle where you can’t interact as directly with the world around you. On a bike you notice things like which plants are blooming at certain times of the year and the rainbow knee-high socks of the rider in front of you. In Portland, you’re smelling coffee roasting and beer brewing as you ride. You’re hearing urban chickens. On a bike you get a real sense of the way a city’s designed and what matters to the people who live there,” says author Lucy Burningham.

With a focus on local drink culture, the guidebook is also an exploration of a thriving beer scene.

“Portland has 51 breweries within city limits, more than any other city in the world, which means there’s plenty of beer being made in every corner of town. Beer drinkers have plenty of choices when it comes to finding fresh, locally brewed beer. And this is a town that celebrates quality and innovation. Brewers are constantly using new ingredients and methods to make surprising, thought-provoking beers. As a beer writer, there’s never a dull moment,” says Burningham.

Combining insider knowledge of the city’s best tasting rooms, where to find rare bottles and which top chefs have a secret beer stash with detailed bike routes and maps, this is the kind of guidebook that will certainly make other velo and hop aficionados jealous.

Images: Hop in the Saddle

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Raise your glass.

As this year’s election approaches, EcoSalon would like to make two points in the sitting president’s favor: Mr. Obama is married to a prominent locavore, and he’s interested in craft brewing, even to the extent of traveling on the campaign trail with White House ales on the bus. Alcohol consumption hasn’t been a point of legislative contention since the start of the twentieth century. Nevertheless, here’s some data with which to toast the candidates.

Beer: You’re in the Clear: 14 things that you probably didn’t know about beer consumption.

Prohibition Did What?!: Prohibition had a huge effect on American alcohol consumption.

The Remedy: Hangover cures from all over the globe.

Alcohol vs. Marijuana: Alcohol is still a lot more popular than marijuana.

Pick Your Poison: Wine and beer are almost equally popular.

What Are Green Wines?: Are taste and sustainability mutually exclusive when it comes to wine?

The Very Many Varieties of Beer: Distinguish your milds from your browns from your lambics.

Visualizing Alcohol Use: Who imbibes the most?

Beer Saved the World: As a species, we’d be nowhere without beer.

Classic Cocktails: Recipes for all the classic cocktails, if you can divine them through the madness of this infographic.

Image: lindsey gee.

The post 10 Infographics on Alcohol appeared first on EcoSalon.

ColumnCan I have a side of fries with that run?

“Can we get burgers and beer?”

These are words that rarely come out of my mouth. Burgers and beer are a far stretch from kale smoothies and quinoa after all.

But burgers – real burgers – are good. Especially when you’ve worked for them. So after a half-marathon this weekend, my friend Megan and I deemed IPAs and burgers on the outdoor patio at the local brewery a must.

I didn’t opt for the lamb, artichoke and chevre version (there was one), or even the pub specialty, I went for the simplest burger on the menu: beef, lettuce, onions and tomato. No cheese. Just a straight up hamburger. No sea salt, or artisan blue cheese or fried egg or even cured bacon. Just a burger. Remember those?

“This is the best thing I have ever eaten,” I said matter of factly.

Now before everyone freaks out about me eating a burger (Gasp! But there’s gluten!) and fries (Gasp! They’re not even made from sweet potatoes!), let me explain, and keep in mind that when all is said and done, I did come home to some vegan chocolate mousse. Was a regular burger really the best thing I had ever eaten? Certainly not. Are burgers even my favorite food? Far from it. But in that moment it was, because post-half marathon, much like post any kind of physical activity, food, even water, tastes better.

In these situations, we appreciate what we’re eating because our body needs it. Not because something caught our eye on the menu, but because we are giving our body sustenance. How often do we feel this way on a regular day basis? Rarely, and it’s not because we’re not having daily hardcore workouts, it’s simply because we are not eating in balance with what our body needs, and in turn, we lose an appreciation for what’s on the plate in front of us.

We live in a world of convenience, and our eating habits have followed suite. We’re hungry, or we know that we should eat, so we grab the nearest thing we can find, or we stop in at a restaurant and order what sounds good. In half an hour or less we’ve eaten and continue on with our day. Thirty minutes after that and we can’t even remember what we just ate. Not because the meal itself wasn’t memorable, but because we were too busy to pay attention. Not really needing everything we were consuming, we didn’t take the time to appreciate it. Soon we’re complicating dishes, because we’re bored with the original version, unsatisfied with its simplicity.

But good food, both in terms of taste and in terms of health, is often simple food. Ask anyone that trains on a consistent basis, and their diets are rarely complicated affairs. They’re made up of all the things we know we should be eating: whole grains, fruits and vegetables, lean proteins, a kale smoothie here and there. If you eat regular, well portioned meals, you’ll feel the same way: satisfied with less.

Time, stress and a lack of a quality food tradition keep us from doing so. We eat dinner on the go, we don’t take time to sit down with friends and break bread, and we focus more on the individual characteristics of food that we think we need – more protein! more antioxidants! – than taking a holistic approach and eating food for food’s sake.

If we take time to think about what we’re consuming – where it came from, what it is, who prepared it – an ordinary dish quickly turns extraordinary. But when we stop thinking about what we eat, we’re rarely satisfied with simplicity. Instead we need fancy combinations, infusions and condiments that distract us from what we’re really eating.

A simple salad? Not good enough. Where’s the ranch dressing?

Vegetable stir fry? Doesn’t anyone have any teriyaki sauce to add to this?

Basic omelette? Can’t that have a little ham and goat cheese in it? And where are my scallions?

We can’t even assess what is good food and what isn’t because our bodies don’t really even need all that we’re giving them. Overdosing is convenient. We don’t think about what we’re consuming because we don’t have to.

“Seriously is this not the best hamburger you have ever eaten?”

“Yes. It’s why we run Brones.”

Megan was right. Eating happens to be one of the reasons that I and several of my friends run, in fact it’s a regular topic of discussion. Not because it means that we can eat anything (although that is a nice feeling), but because we have a better appreciation for food that we don’t get when we eat just because we have to.

There’s nothing better than a meal after you’ve worked your body. That’s natural, it’s what humans have done for centuries. But most of us don’t do jobs anymore that require physical labor. Instead we live in urban areas, frazzled and neurotic, and after three hours of staring at a computer screen and feeling low on energy, we reward ourselves with a big lunch, probably consuming much more than our body actually needs.

What’s the solution? Reminding ourselves of what good food really is and how much of it we actually need.

Much like eating outdoors helps us to appreciate the simplicity of food so does physical exertion. Some of the best meals I have ever had were after long hikes or runs, with friends around a table sharing the mutual feeling of accomplishment along with a much needed refuel.

We don’t have to commit to intense workouts before each meal, but we can eat in better balance with what our bodies need. Give our body the sustenance that it requires, not because the food is convenient, but because we’re conscious about what we’re taking in.

And plan more workouts that include a good celebratory meal with friends afterwards. Be sure to get the IPA.

Editor’s note: This is the latest installment of Anna Brones’s weekly column at EcoSalon, Foodie Underground, discovering what’s new and different in the underground food movement, from supper clubs to mini markets to the culinary avant garde.

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A round-up of what we’re reading right now.

Do you know what’s in your food? What’s really in your food? Some pesticides to start with. [Via TakePart]

It’s summer; if you don’t start bike commuting now, when will you? This guide will get you started. [Via Women’s Adventure]

Guess who is the latest purveyor of Hermès knockoffs? Hermès employees of course. [Via Refinery29]

Aggressive in ankle boots? As it turns out, your shoes really do say something about your personality. [Via How About We]

Being uncomfortable is what soul searching is all about. [Via Elevation Outdoors]

If that summer road trip has you craving a good microbrew, this map will point you in the right direction. [Via Pop Chart Lab]

Creativity killers are everywhere, can we add Facebook to the list? [Via Co.CREATE]

Image: Luca Violetto

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The good, the bad, and the downright delicious.

Food. For some people, it’s a simple necessity. For others, it’s a reason for living. Regardless of where you fall on the foodie spectrum, you’re sure to enjoy this selection of food infographics, which explore everything from seasonable eating to food waste to the optimum temperature for enjoying a (not ice) cold beer.

Eat Seasonably: an interactive look at what’s in season (click for interaction).

Understanding Artisan Gelato: and why it tastes better than regular gelato.

Bring Food Education Back: an infographic from Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution that makes an argument for teaching kids about good food.

The Case for Beer: so it’s not technically food, but this infographic takes such a good look at beer that we’ll leave it in anyway.

Summertime American Eats: thanks, Pepto-Bismol, we now have heartburn just from looking at this

Food Waste: a reminder to finish your plate.

The Splendiferous Array of Culinary Tools: we sense our Foodie Underground fans drooling.

Kings of Fast Food: a look at how fast food advertisers lure us in.

Vegetarianism: for National Vegetarian Month, RetailMeNot breaks down the world of vegetarianism.

America Wants GMOs Labeled: so “just label it” already, FDA.

ALSO CHECK OUT:

10 Earth Day Infographics

Image: Selma Broeder

The post 10 Food Infographics That Have Us Consciously Consuming appeared first on EcoSalon.

If you love beer, the Oregon Brewers Festival will not let you down. Granted, the crowds can be overwhelming, and you must be prepared for the spontaneous, group cheers that sprout up every ten minutes. However, with over 80 beers available from numerous brewers across the nation, and your own take-home BrewFest mug to taste from, a beer lover really can’t go wrong.

We arrived in Portland this past weekend with exuberance due to the summer-dress-wearing, flip-flop sporting, warm weather (given that we were coming from the sweatshirt, fuzzy-Uggs-wearing 55-degree deep fog summer in San Francisco). On our way to the BrewFest, we obligingly yet very willingly stopped by one of the numerous and well-known Portland food cart courtyards. My friends were partial to the Venezuelan stand, but since I’d already feasted on “the best home-cooked-breakfast-at-a-friend’s ever,” I decided an ice cream cart called Scoop was a good bet. (Did I mention how much I love being on vacation?)

Back to the BrewFest. We arrived on a smattering of borrowed bikes and picked up our tokens. We opted for the two-fer special: $50 for two mugs, and two bags of 20 tokens. At one token a taste or four for a full mug, we were in for a day of serious tasting. After briefly consulting the beer map, we veered toward Leafer Madness IPA by Beer Valley Brewing Co. based in Idaho, which ended up a personal favorite. Other hits with my non-tee-totaling friends were Oregon beers – Maiden the Shade by Ninkasi Brewing Co. from Eugene and Son of a C-Note by Lompoc from Portland itself.

Drawing particularly long lines were the fruity libations, such as the Organic Acai Berry Wheat, Bluebeery Ale, and CoCoNut Porter. Luckily, the lines were short when the bratwurst “so-much-for-my-vegetarian-lifestyle-attempts” cravings kicked in. Well, it’s only once a year! Bookmark your calendar for next year’s festival, if you haven’t already.

Image: Philly Casablanca

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If you want to drink excellent beer, we have it. If you want compromise your standards and drink yellow nonsense, then you’re probably not our customer anyway, so what do we care?”- Greg Koch, co-founder Stone Brewing

In nearly a decade of writing about small business, there is no single group I’ve enjoyed talking with more than craft brewers. It’s an industry that attracts passionate beer-lovers of all stripes, meaning it has more than its share of fun-loving oddballs. (Yes, a cult-like religious devotee to the products by your man with a can may hold sway.) Thus, I was looking forward to the 2009 documentary Beer Wars, a classic look at scrappy craft beer Davids taking on the big bland brew Goliaths.

Well, my reaction to the film was the equal of an Abita Beer’s raspberry Purple Haze (as opposed to the delicious Strawberry Harvest): Quaffable, with a major kick, but ultimately unsatisfying with a bit of a bitter aftertaste.

The problems with Beer Wars can be laid at the feet of the filmmaker, Anat Baron, or more precisely, her decision to take cover in the elephantine shadow of underdog muckraker nonpareil, Michael Moore. The angry fat man’s techniques overwhelm the trenchant stuff in the film without ever raising the pitchforks and torches the way good agitprop needs to do. Let’s look at where Moore’s influence renders Beer Wars flat.

1. Filmmaker Megalomania: Like Moore, Anat Baron decides to make herself the centerpiece, but unlike Moore, she doesn’t have the massive personality (or frame) to pull it off. Her connection to the beer industry is that she was a manager at Mike’s Hard Lemonade and knows how hard it is for the little guy to compete. Fair enough, but her former job doesn’t lend her any sort of expertise that Beer Wars uses to its benefit. Baron comes across as good-natured and friendly, but she isn’t a force like Moore, a guinea pig like Morgan Sperlock, or a fearless schemer like Nick Broomfield, so she ends up being a distraction in her own film. At times, you get the feeling Baron knows it, because she disappears during stretches in the middle. Michael Moore couldn’t disappear with the help of David Copperfield.

2. Boilerplate Gimmickry: Animation? Check. Black-and-white commercials? Check. Voiceover narration? Check. Disconnected shot of a visit to a Clydesdale farm? Check. OK, so the last one only pertains to Beer Wars, but you get the point. Early on, she animates the fact that wouldn’t you know it? She’s allergic to beer“¦ Wow. The irony. It’s so much more vivid in cartoon form. In places, it’s effective, like juxtaposing footage of the Big Three CEOs discussing the quality of their brands along with commercials featuring farting horses or jiggly boobies, but ultimately the documentary gimmicks are as routine as sepia tones and violin melodies in a Ken Burns production.

3. Irrelevant Man-on-the-Street Interviews: At one point in the film, Baron ask people at a Santa Monica bar about Budweiser Super Bowl ads, while they’re watching the Super Bowl. We learn that most of the selected-to-fit interviewees think Bud is the official Super Bowl sponsor, when actually it’s Coors. That sucks for the brand managers in Golden, Col., but what does that have to do with the price of hops in Hungary? All the craft brewers know they have to build loyalists beer-by-beer, not through some insipid ad with horny woodchucks they could never afford in the first place.

4. Faux Naivety: Late in the film, Baron goes to Washington D.C. to attend a big beer lobbying event. And she is shocked, shocked, to find big breweries influence the government with their deep pockets. The $4.6-billion Anheuser-Busch InBev has more pull with the lobbyists than Chicago’s Black Toad Brewing Co.? Wonders never cease.

5. Unearned Pathos: AB bought Rolling Rock a few years back solely for the name and local history, and then promptly shut down the famous “33” plant in Latrobe, Pa. Corporatism at its worst. However, Rolling Rock was not a craft brewery, which is why it’s a two-minute scene jammed into Beer Wars to show how terrible it is for a workingman to lose his job. Agreed. Budweiser is terrible. But the schmaltz fizzles.

6. Manipulating the Subjects: One of the featured subjects of Beer Wars is Sam Adams co-founder Rhonda Kallman, who is now peddling a caffeine-infused brew called Moonshot. Ignoring the fact that Moonshot is a marketing gimmick that clearly evolved from the crime that is Red Bull*, Kallman tries to sell her product to Coors and Anheuser-Busch. She gets rejected, but bully for her if she gets another shot and convinces them otherwise. I was perplexed by this counter to the film’s David vs. Goliath theme. Kallman is a savvy business owner looking for capital, not an experimental beermaker. A more cynical review might note that she’s a mother of three having a rough go of it. Oh, who am I kidding? It’s more cooked up pathos for Baron’s audience manipulation.

7. Ignoring the Actual Forest for the Premise of the Trees: The biggest problem with Beer Wars (and the best thing in the real world) is that craft brewers are gaining market share bottle-by-bottle. As noted in the film, craft beer is the only growing segment in the industry. There are some 1,500 American breweries, up from basically zero 30 years ago, and market leaders like Stone, New Belgium and Brooklyn are widely distributed and enormously popular. Baron scores solid points exposing the origins of organic beer from “Green Valley Brewing”: a Budweiser plant. The film also deserves credit for explaining the big breweries’ monopolistic practices in distribution and grocery store shelving, but the meaningful strides of microbreweries in recent years are overlooked. Whole Foods is a flag-bearer for the craft beer revolution. My local Brooklyn Associated Grocery has an entire walk-in beer bonanza featuring an amazing selection of microbrews, and my hometown of Billings Mont. is flush with handcrafted Tap Rooms.

For all its freshman shortcomings, Beer Wars is worthwhile for one reason: Sam Calagione, founder and President of Dogfish Head Craft Brewery in Milton, Delaware. He’s the star of the show, a daffy, dedicated beer nut facing the biggest expansion of his company’s life. Calagione steals the film through the combination of his down-to-earth personality and mad scientist methods. Think Blood Orange Heffeweizen or Pangaea, which features an ingredient from all seven continents, including water from Antarctica.

It’s because of brewers like Calagione that you and I can walk into just about any bar in America and have ourselves an artisanal glass of beer. In honor of Calagione and all the brewers out there doing the Lord’s work, it’s worth cracking a pint and taking in the film. You might get lost in the sloppy mess that is Beer Wars, but the insurgents are winning.

Further information: check out Todd Alstrom of Beer Advocate.com in a post-film discussion on the DVD extras. I recommend the panel – it offers a more edifying discussion than the film itself.

Images: Beer Wars, ddb & kdw

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