12/5/08 Brewing Up Renewable Energy

Brewing Up Renewable Energy. I'm Greg Martin as Line On Agriculture presents the Harvest Clean Energy Report. There are a lot of businesses these days that are getting on the renewable energy band wagon. Many are doing it in small ways while others have jumped in feet first. Even breweries have found that they can produce a great tasting product and yet save energy at the same time. Sam Hoffman, President of Red Lodge Ales in Montana has a history using local products to craft their beers. HOFFMAN: We've been in business 10 years making small batch of locally handcrafted beers and we use local and northwest agricultural products whenever we can. We get our base malt from Great Falls which is all grown in Montana. We get some of our bagged malts from Great Western Malting which is in Idaho Falls and Vancouver, Washington and we get most of our hops from the Yakima Valley in Washington so we've always been about using local ag products. They are building a brand new 12,000 sq. ft. brewery that will utilize some very green technology. HOFFMAN: We've received a grant from the United States Department of Agricultural Rural Development to put in a solar thermal array. And I think it's going to amount to the largest solar thermal array in Montana and basically using the sun's energy to convert the hot water's a lot more efficient than using it to convert to electricity. According to Hoffman it is an ideal use since the brewing process uses considerable amounts of hot water for brewing and cleaning. Plus they use the hot water to help heat the building in the winter. They also are using renewables for delivery trucks. HOFFMAN: For the last 3 or 4 years we've been collecting waste vegetable oil from local restaurants that we distribute beer to and then we convert that to biodiesel that we can put back into our truck and deliver more beer so it kind of makes a happy little cycle there and then finally we're installing a product called Free Air or our cold storage which in the winter simply exchanges air from the outside when it's cold enough and shuts down the conventional compressor and evaporator thereby saving a lot of electricity. In addition he received a grant from the State of Montana to help install the new technology and he says that all this should help pay back in about 5 or 6 years. Hoffman makes it well know that they are very energy friendly. HOFFMAN: We've gotten quite a bit of press locally in Montana from use of the biodiesel and solar. Beyond the marketing aspect of it I think it's something every business person should look at. For additional information on clean energy and the upcoming Harvesting Clean Energy conference, visit harvestcleanenergy.org. That's today's Line On Agriculture. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network. For more information about the upcoming 9th annual Harvesting Clean Energy conference visit www.harvestcleanenergy.org/conference. The Conference is January 25-27, 2009 in Billings, MT.