Beverage World - October 15, 2007 - (Page 22)

COVERSTORY ’SBRE EARTH An eco-conscious business since its inception, New Belgium Brewing Co. demonstrates that sustainability and profitability aren’t mutually exclusive. By Jeff Cioletti B 22_BEVERAGE WORLD_OCTOBER 2007 BEVERAGEWORLD.COM PHOTOGRAPHS BY STEPHEN COLLECTOR efore you throw away those sturdy cardboard shipping tubes that housed the important blueprints, photos or charts that arrived today know this: They make great desk legs. That’s just one small observation that anyone lucky enough to visit the executive offices of New Belgium Brewing Co. (Fort Collins, Colo., USA) can file away. But more than that, it’s the kind of detail that helps illustrate a grander portrait of a company that has gained a reputation for leaving no sustainable stone unturned. It’s a philosophy that suffuses the operation from the offices to the brew house to the tasting room, all the way out to the farthest reaches of its Western US markets that extend as far west as the Pacific Ocean and as far east as Lake Michigan. The brewery has grown exponentially since its humble beginnings in 1991—an origin story that ranks among the most famous in the craft brewing segment. Following electrical engineer/homebrewer Jeff Lebesch’s trans-European bike trip—a trek that took him to some of Belgium’s finest breweries—he and wife, Kim Jordan, launched the operation in their basement (top-selling brand Fat Tire’s name was inspired by the trip). Even in those simpler start up years, the brewery always had an eye on the eco-system. “Our first brew kettle had a galvanized trashcan sitting around the kettle stack, and in between the trashcan and the stack was a copper coil that we would run cold water through,” company CEO and co-founder Jordan told Beverage World during a recent visit to the brewer’s Fort Collins headquarters. “There would be a heat exchange between the water and the energy essentially going out of the stack and we would use that energy to warm the water for the next brew. So way back then we were toying with things to make sure that what we wanted to be—which, at the time, we called ‘environmental stewardship,’ was how we were actually practicing.” Sixteen years later, New Belgium produces just shy of a half-million barrels per year. In addition to its most prominent brand, Fat Tire, New Belgium’s brews include Abbey (a dubbel, which, along with Fat Tire, was one of its inaugural beers), Sunshine, Mothership Wit, Blue Paddle, 1554 (based on an obscure Belgian black beer style dating back to its namesake year), Trippel and a range of special and seasonal releases like summer’s Skinny Dip. In June it opened a new US$26 million eco-friendly bottling and packaging facility that gives it plenty of room to meet demand well beyond that, with a capacity of 850,000 barrels. (See sidebar http://www.beverageworld.com/

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Beverage World - October 15, 2007

Beverage World - October 15, 2007 Table of Contents Global Recycling Trends Editor’s Note CCE’s Recycling Initiative New Beverages: VeeV New Beverage Roundup Market Metrics: Green-Minded Consumers Cover Story: Earth’s Brewer Adina World Beat Beverages • Fetzer Vineyards Kim Jeffery, Nestlé Waters North America Sambazon Icelandic Water Holdings John Compton, PepsiCo North America Dennis Puffer, Coors Brewing Co. ITO EN Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. • Cuca Fresca Exports Jeff Seabright, The Coca-Cola Company Mendocino Wine Co. Doug Muhleman, Anheuser-Busch Seth Goldman, Honest Tea Supply Chain: Waste Management Production: Environmental Operations Operations Observations Packaging: Lightweight Bottles Trendspotting R&D: Eco Beverages • Ask the Expert Sales & Marketing: Green POS Materials Distribution: Green Fleets Distribution: Fleet of the Month: Manhattan Beer Distributors FleetBeat The Beverage World Top 100 Classifieds Ad Index

Beverage World - October 15, 2007

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