Bayern Brewing continues to help Mother Earth

I’m not sure why I haven’t posted about the Bayern Ecopack before, but a recent trip to the brewery managed to jog my memory about a pretty great program. Bayern Brewing has long been doing its best to help the environment and they’re still one of the only places in Missoula where you can recycle glass.

It used to be that you could drop off your clean Bayern bottles and they would recycle them for you. For the past several months now, they have a new program that involves the Bayern Ecopack. The Ecopack holds 24 qualifying bottles, with these qualifiers:

• Standard brown 12-oz. bottles
• Good condition: no cracks or chips, no cigarette butts or other garbage inside
• Pry-off: no twist off threads
• No embossing on the bottle (brand names, etc.)

For a $3 deposit, you can pick up an Ecopack and fill it with empty beer bottles that meet those standards. Then, are here’s the best part, you get a 5 cent refund for each bottle and a 10 cent refund for each full Ecopack you bring in. Bayern will give you another empty one or you can choose to get your deposit back if you want.

As you probably have seen, you can pick up an empty Ecopack at Bayern, Orange Street Food Farm, Good Food Store, Pattee Creek Market and Worden’s Market. But you can only drop off a full container at the brewery.

Pretty sweet deal if you like beer and the environment.

- Matt Pritchard

Big Sky Brewing Co. is going green

Very few breweries don’t think about waste and the environment. Brewing is a very natural process, but cleaning beer equipment and storage considerations can wreak havoc on the environment. And though many new breweries are building green sites to begin with, I’m seeing many more retrofit as others upgrade or expand. Big Sky Brewing Co. is no exception, as you can see from this brewery news update in their latest newsletter.

New Wine Barrels: Kriek Ale will be the first beer aged in the barrels
In an effort to go Green:
· Energy Analyst Evaluation
o New lighting: energy efficient florescent
o Auto lighting shutdown
o Motor to cycle up and down with call for energy demand
o Better cooling motors
o Auto computer shutdown
· Designing and Building a New CIP (clean in place) System
o Saves chemicals, time and the environment
o
Meets strict cleaning procedures required by our Head Brewer

Prost,

GG

Big Sky Brewing Co.