New Glarus Brewing Launching C02 Reclamation Plant
(New Glarus, WI) – Today the New Glarus Brewing Company announced the commissioning and operation of its brand new CO2 reclamation plant.
In a journey that started over five years ago, The New Glarus Brewing Company is now able to say that they are, if not the only, certainly one of the first craft breweries in the state of Wisconsin to eliminate their CO2 emissions that are a natural byproduct of the brewing process. Without this CO2 reclamation plant, the CO2 produced during the brewing process would normally be vented to the environment. Now, with this new technology, this CO2 will be reclaimed and turned back into a liquid and stored for future use in the brewing process.
The inspiration for this project came in 2017 when brewmaster Dan Carey and Company founder and President Deb Carey were watching a news program detailing how America had recently pulled out of the Paris Climate accord and decided to do what they could to address the issue in their own business. “Sustainability in brewing is a huge issue,” said Dan Carey, “To make our products as consistent as possible we need fresh, clean water, we need a climate that’s stable, and we need to be good stewards of the natural resources that we use.”
Project lead Jason Schultz explained, “Processing CO2 involves removing contaminates, compressing the gas into a liquid, and cooling it. And, because of how we’ve designed this system, we are able to reclaim even more resources by utilizing the heat from the cooling load of CO2 to reduce the electricity needs of our refrigeration plant. It’s a win-win-win.”
As a company, New Glarus Brewing has found that by making decisions based on a conservation and sustainability ethic often pays off down the line in ways that are impossible to predict from the outset, and the same is true with this CO2 reclamation plant. Because this decision was made to help New Glarus do what they can to address CO2 emissions and climate change they are now able to produce their own CO2 which is currently experiencing a global shortage. “Often we find that when we do the right things for the right reasons we are rewarded for that downstream,” said Company Founder and President Deb Carey, “Where other breweries are struggling to find CO2 for the brewing process, we are making our own. This means that not only are we doing right by the environment, we are ensuring our continued success well into the future.”
The New Glarus Brewing Company uses CO2 in its brewing process to purge air from its bottles, cans, and kegs which ensures that their products stay as fresh as possible. All New Glarus beers are naturally carbonated and no CO2 is used as an additive in the carbonation of New Glarus Beers.
