Waste Reduction Awards Program (WRAP)

Anderson Valley Brewing Company

WRAP Award Winner: 2005, 2004, 2003, 2001, and 2000

Introduction

Anderson Valley Brewing Company (AVBC), located in Boonville, Mendocino County, was founded by Kenneth and Kimberly Allen in 1987. The Allens started making and selling beer at the local Buckhorn Saloon. In 1996, they moved to the brewery’s current 30-acre site, about a mile away. AVBC currently makes about 20,000 barrels a year (a total of about 620,000 gallons).

The AVBC facility includes a 7,500-square-foot brew house where the grains are stored and mashed (see below) and a 16,000-square-foot building that houses their cellar, office, and packaging operation. The facility also includes a 3,000-square-foot visitor center with a tasting room and gift store, and a 3,000-square-foot horse stable.

The brewery has 36 employees, 6 of whom work in brewing; the other 30 work in packaging, administration, engineering, and the visitor center. Eight employees commute from Ukiah, about 25 miles one way; the rest live in the Anderson Valley, commuting less than 10 miles one way.

AVBC has applied for and received multiple awards from the Waste Reduction Awards Program (WRAP), the most recent in 2005. In February 2006, Board staff interviewed brewer Neil Atkins and other brewery staff. Atkins, who is also responsible for quality assurance/quality control, worked at the brewery from 2002 to 2005. He left to work at a New Orleans brewery, but returned to AVBC after Hurricane Katrina.

Operation Basics

AVBC buys about 94 percent of its malted barley from Canada; about 5 percent comes from Wisconsin and about 1 percent from Great Britain. Their supply of hops comes from the state of Washington and their water is supplied by on-site wells.

In the brew house, the malted barley is "mashed." This process involves crushing the grain, adding hot water to the mixture, and steeping it in copper vats for about 90 minutes; mashing changes the starch into fermentable sugars. The spent grains are separated and pumped out of one side of the building to a driveway area, where two ranchers back up their trucks to collect the grain; see Organic Waste below.

The remaining liquid, called the "wort," is pumped into a stainless steel boil kettle. Hops are added along with gypsum, which helps break down the proteins. The wort is boiled for another 90 minutes and then goes to a whirlpool to remove the hops and some of the protein. The spent hops go to one of the ranchers, see below.

After the whirlpool, the wort is cooled from over 200 degrees Fahrenheit to about 70 degrees on its way to a stainless steel fermenting tank in the adjacent building. Yeast is added from cultures that are stored at another facility. The wort ferments for about five days, is aged for two weeks, and becomes beer. The beer is filtered to remove remaining yeast, hops, and proteins; at this point it is called "bright beer," the term used for beer that has been cleaned of yeast. Most of the yeast is reused; some goes to a local farmer as described below.

The bright beer goes into a tank where carbon dioxide is added; the beer is then bottled or kegged. The brewing process is described on the AVBC website.

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Waste Reduction/Reuse

Beer

Practicing waste reduction is cost-effective, explained Atkins. According to General Manager Graydon Brown, AVBC had recently reduced its loss of beer by 85 percent by replacing and repairing equipment and adjusting the flow meter, which regulates the amount of beer going into keg machines.

About 40 percent of AVBC’s beer production goes out in reusable 5-, 13.5-, and 15.5-gallon kegs. The brewery uses its own kegs for in-state shipping as they are able to ensure that the kegs are returned, explained Atkins. For out-of-state shipping, AVBC leases kegs from a private company; these are sent out with AVBC’s beer and then will be cleaned and used by successive breweries.

Cardboard, Bottles, and Paper

Bottles are shipped to the company in cardboard cases. The 12-ounce bottles are shipped 24 bottles to a case, and the 22-ounce bottles are shipped 12 to a case. The empty 12-ounce bottles are already in their six-pack carriers. The bottles are taken out of the cases, rinsed, sanitized, filled, labeled, and put back into the same cardboard boxes that are date-stamped and shipped out.

If there are bottles left over when they are making a particular kind of beer, these will be rinsed-sanitized again to be filled with the next batch, explained Atkins.

AVBC office manager Saundra Liebig noted that the company reuses paper in the office by cutting it up to use as note pads.

Chemicals

The brewery uses peracetic acid and a caustic alkali, mixed with water, for cleaning the tanks after each batch of beer is made. By checking to see that the pH levels remain suitable for the cleaning, Atkins explained, the brewery is able to use the cleaning solution multiple times, which reduces waste. When the cleaning mixture can no longer be used, it is pumped into the first pond of the site’s water treatment system (see "Water Treatment" section below).

The acid and alkali are shipped to AVBC from Oakland in 55-gallon plastic barrels at a rate of one barrel every three months. The barrels get reused in a variety of ways, explained Atkins. Inside the plant, they are filled with water and iodine so the off-flow tubes from the various tanks can be vented into them. This creates a sanitary seal that assures no air can get into the tank. The spent hops are put into the buckets and then hauled by the farmers (see "Organic Waste" section below). The barrels are also used as trash cans indoors and outdoors. One of the brewery’s workers has made baskets for the game of disc golf from the barrels. Any barrels that are not reused are recycled.

Pallets

Because the empty bottles cannot be stacked as densely as full ones, AVBC has more wooden pallets shipped to them than they ship out. The empty bottle cases are shipped in at 60 to a pallet, and the full bottle cases are shipped out at 72 to a pallet. For every 48-pallet truckload of empty cases that comes in (at a rate of about 1.5 truckloads per week), 40 pallets of beer are shipped out, leaving 8 empty wood pallets at the brewery. So there is quite a collection of used pallets, notes Atkins. "We have had companies come up from Santa Rosa, Petaluma, and Windsor and say they will take the pallets at a charge of $1 per pallet. But we want to sell them. Used pallets are worth $5–$7; new ones are $15–$20. So we are still working on an environmentally friendly solution that is cost-effective."

Other Reuse

AVBC also has a "bone yard" where they put used plastic and metal pipes, equipment, and other discards for reuse. "We don’t throw much out," notes Atkins. Used brewing equipment is also listed for sale on the company's website.

Organic Waste

Brew By-Products

As noted under Operations Basics above, there are three by-products from making beer: spent grain, hops, and yeast.

As is traditionally done by breweries, the spent grain is used for animal feed. AVBC sells the spent grain to two ranchers. One is a Petaluma goat rancher, who picks it up two days a week. The other is a local cattle rancher, Peter Bradford, who gets it three days a week. Bradford raises beef cattle on a ranch down the road from the brewery. According to AVBC's WRAP application, the farmers paid a total of approximately $6,000 for this grain in 2004.

The spent grain is fed directly to the cattle and makes very good inexpensive feed, Bradford explains, because it has high total absorbable nutrition and very little waste. Bradford gets about 6.8 tons per day from two batches of beer (6,800 pounds per batch) and he would take more if he could.

The spent hops are loaded from the whirlpool and hop back (the sealed container used to hold the hops) inside the brewery into the used 55-gallon barrels. Some beers are made with hop pellets rather than hops, so they do not produce a by-product. Batches that use non-pelletized hops produce about two barrels per batch, which also go to Bradford. The availability of the hops depends on the brewing scheduled, but on average Bradford picks up the spent hops about twice a week. He uses these for mulching around buildings and in the gardens. Bradford noted that the hop mulch improves soil moisture by cooling the ground and keeps unwanted plants from growing.

Yeast, which settles to the bottom of the fermentation tank, is pulled off into previously used bright beer tanks. About 170 gallons of yeast are extracted for each 3,100 gallons of beer (100 barrels at 31 gallons a barrel). AVBC reuses most of the yeast in successive beer batches. About two percent is sold to John Volker, a local organic farmer, who sprays it on his crops. Volker’s Boont Organic Farms supplies produce to the Boont Store located on the main street in Boonville.

Compost

Since 2003, the brewery has had four shire horses that have been used to offer carriage rides and beer delivery (this service has been temporarily suspended, according to AVBC’s website). AVBC buys a 90 percent inert shaving mixture from Canada for its horse stalls. Cleaning the horse stalls produces an annual total of about two tons of a sawdust, manure, and urine mixture that is composted and sold to the public for $20 per pickup truck load.

Atkins noted that he had previously grown oyster mushrooms in the compost in a trailer on the property and offered them free to employees. He hopes to start production again and sell them at the local mushroom festival and farmers market.

Recycling

"We have increasingly emphasized recycling because our customers want it," explained Atkins. "We try to recycle everything we can." The brewery recycles plastic shrink/stretch wrap, paper, steel, glass, and plastic bottles (polyethylene terephthalate [PET] and high-density polyethylene [HDPE]). They also recycle cardboard from a variety of sources including damaged boxes, the top sheets used to protect the empty bottles in shipping, and other boxes that contained goods shipped to them.

In 1998, AVBC bought a baler, enabling them to compact their cardboard and shrink/stretch wrap. Summertime Farms of Berkeley picks up these baled items along with boxes of used glass bottles, explains James Crabtree, who coordinates the brewery’s shipping, receiving, and recycling.

Willits Solid Waste supplies the company with six 90-gallon plastic containers, three for PET/HDPE and three for mixed paper. According to the 2005 WRAP applications, AVBC recycled more than 20 tons of glass, 10 tons of cardboard, and 4 tons of plastic wrap between June 2004 and June 2005.

AVBC, like other businesses, does end up with broken pallets, which they sell to the public for firewood along with branches that have fallen from the oak trees on the property. If truckers are careful, Atkins explains, they can maintain a low breakage rate on the pallets.

Willits also collects a 2-cubic-yard dumpster once a week that is hauled to the landfill. According to the WRAP application, this is about 200 pounds a week or 5.2 tons per year. Some of the trash comes from the employee lunch room, Atkins noted, but AVBC has not done a waste assessment of what else is being landfilled.

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Environmentally Preferable Purchasing

AVBC’s 85- and 100-barrel copper brew kettles came from two closed breweries in Germany, Ambrose Brutting Braü (Stoffelstein) and Magnus Braü (Kassendorf), explained Atkins. They have also purchased previously used stainless steel tanks.

The bottle glass, which comes from Owens-Brockway in Portland, has 50 percent postconsumer and 65 percent overall recycled content, explained AVBC’s Peter Suddeth.

While the company only buys wood pallets, they do use plastic pallets which are brought by some of the truckers and re-circulated as AVBC loads their goods. Plastic pallets have a higher cost, but also last longer than wood ones.

AVBC has a non-toxic pest control system, an affable feline named Crystal, to remove rodents from the horse stables.

Energy

Transportation

The company uses energy to transport all of the beer ingredients, except the water, to the brewery and to ship out the finished beer. About 80 percent of their beer is sold in California, Atkins notes, and the rest is sold in about 15 other states. AVBC hires a Ukiah trucking company to deliver their beer; when the trucks return, they bring back other goods so that they are not running empty miles. AVBC’s other vehicles include a diesel van, two electric forklifts, an electric snorkel lift, one propane lift; and a diesel tractor.

Operations

Both the brew house and the building used for the cellar, office, and packaging operation, are insulated to conserve energy. Because of the insulation, the cellar stays at the 65°–68°F temperature required for the yeast without heating or cooling. The wort and bright beer are cooled using glycol through electricity-driven pumps.

The brewery operates five days a week, 12 hours a day. Energy conservation is encouraged by signs reminding workers to turn off the lights and water and shut the doors.

In February 2006, the brewery’s $860,000 solar power project became operational. According to AVBC’s website, the system includes 768 photovoltaic panels which cover about 12,160 square feet and should last 40–50 years. The panels are located on the south facing roofs of the cellar/office/packaging building and on a free-standing open-sided structure which is also used for parking. The panels provide about 40 percent of their energy needs, notes Atkins. Of AVBC’s approximately 30 acres of grass, about 2.5 acres are mowed using a team of eight goats. The rest is mowed mostly with the tractor; some is eaten by the horses.

Water Treatment

The brewery has a three-pond water treatment system that covers about 1.5 acres. Water from the tank-cleaning goes through this pond system to balance the pH level. Toilet and washroom water goes into a septic system.

In the first pond, the water is treated with bacteria that consume excess nutrients, by-products of the brewing process, Atkins explained. In the second pond, the water is aerated, and in the third pond it is clarified. Mosquito fish and gold fish are used in the third pond to keep down mosquitoes. From the third pond, the water is drip-irrigated on 15 acres of the site’s grass.

What’s Next

The brewery is considering obtaining a license to make ethanol from distilled beer waste, explained general manager Brown. The distiller would be run using steam recovered from the beer making process. The ethanol produced would be mostly used as a sanitizer inside the brewery. This could become a reality in the next year or two.

AVBC is also looking at the possibility of recapturing the carbon dioxide produced in fermentation, to carbonate the beer before bottling or kegging. This would reduce or eliminate the need to buy carbon dioxide. The setup for this process is costly, Atkins notes, but buying carbon dioxide is also expensive. A system could pay for itself after five years.

The brewery is also looking at bottle conditioning as another method of reducing the need to purchase carbon dioxide is bottle conditioning. In this method, a little yeast is added to beer in the bottle before it is capped; the carbon dioxide is then produced in the bottle.

As of mid-2006, AVBC was constructing a fountain using a recycled brewing vessel at the brewery entrance.

Contact Information

Neil Atkins
Anderson Valley Brewing Company
17700 Highway 253
Boonville, CA 95415
(707) 895-22353
www.avbc.com

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WRAP Case Studies | WRAP

Last updated: March 03, 2008