Local, Sustainable Beer Dousing American Beer Market

The North American Organic Brewers Festival continues today, but if you're not fortunate enough to be in Portland this weekend, you can still cozy up with a pint and learn about how craft brewers are going green and organic with this 3,000-word feature in Wend.

According to the article, the number of breweries in the country has risen from 44 to nearly 2,000 in the past decade, and the trend shows no sign of slowing. Small brewers are buying local and often organic ingredients, and they're giving special attention to environmental stewardship. Those practices caught the attention of the mega-brewers, who are following suit:

Local, sustainable beer is dousing the American beer market. According to the Organic Trade Association, organic craft beer sales increased 40 percent in 2005, tying it with organic coffee as the fastest-growing organic beverage in the country. And now, in an attempt to stay afloat, the big boys have tossed their hats into the eco ring. In April 2007, Anheuser-Busch released two Organic Beers to the market: Wild Hop lager and Stone Mill pale ale. In 2008 the Molson Coors Brewing Company set the rolling global target to reduce water-use efficiency by four percent. And, according to a 2008 promotional video, Miller claims to now be recycling 99.9% of all packaging waste.

When we were in Portland earlier this month we visited the Lauralwood Public House & Brewery, and we plan to post the video from our visit early next week.

-Mark