You may not have thought of it before, but drinking locally brewed beer is a great way to help the environment. Why?
Because beer is heavy. And when you load it onto trucks to transport it long distances from breweries out of state, it burns a lot of fuel. And that means more carbon emissions into the atmosphere.
But if you drink fresh, local beer, that beer is transported shorter distances, burning less fuel. And there are other environmental benefits to drinking local as well. Here are a few stats to keep in mind as we approach Earth Day.
• Semi trucks have one or two fuel tanks that hold about 120 to 160 gallons of gasoline each. If a truck has one tank on each side, that’s upwards of 300 gallons of gas. That much fuel is needed because semi trucks have poor fuel economy — about 5.6 miles per gallon.
• So, that means if you were going to transport a beer from, say, Fort Collins, Colorado, it would require 157 gallons of gas. The burning of one gallon of gasoline, whether diesel or standard fuel, generates about 20 pounds of carbon dioxide. So one trip from Fort Collins to Phoenix generates about 3,140 pounds of CO2 emissions.
• Or, for example, a trip from Paso Robles, California to Phoenix requires about 103 gallons of fuel for a semi-truck. That would create 2,060 pounds of CO2 emissions.
• To contrast, SanTan Brewing Company’s beers are sold Valleywide. Let’s say the average distance our beers travel from our distributor is about 20 miles. That’s about 3.5 gallons of gasoline, or only 70 pounds of emissions.
• And, we’re working locally to lower our carbon emissions in our brewing process as well. We use nitrogen to displace more than 4,500 metric tons of CO2 production each year, equal to 9 million pounds of carbon dioxide.
• Finally, chances are, local breweries are sourcing local ingredients to make their products, reducing that carbon footprint even more.
There are many great reasons to drink local, whether it’s your favorite SanTan Brewing Company product or beers from any of our fine colleagues throughout the state of Arizona. And as we approach Earth Day, don’t forget about the positive impact drinking local has on our environment.
