A crowd of regulars were getting restless outside a small craft brewery in rural Coshocton County earlier this month.
A small herd of German Mangalitsa pigs, covered in curls, jostled one another as a tractor dropped a giant mushy pile of grain into their pasture. Their anxious snorts quickly subsided as they dove snout-first into barley mash, still warm from brewing.
Wooly Pig Farm Brewery owner Kevin Ely says this is more than just mealtime for the brewery’s namesakes. It's a vital part of the business.
“The pigs help us process all of our brewery waste,” Ely said.
Before a craft beer makes its way into your glass, it requires large amounts of water and energy, and it leaves behind large amounts of solid organic waste. At Wooly Pig Farm Brewery, those leftovers help feed their livestock, which they butcher and sell to help supplement their business in a closed-loop system.
Ely said very little goes to waste.
“A lot of the stuff that we do, if you were on a farm 50 years ago, 100 years ago, this is just how you’d reduce your consumption just because you needed to. It is kind of common sense,” he said.
A ‘win-win’
‘Spent grain’ – the barley mash that the pigs devoured – is one of the biggest byproducts of beer production. Despite its nutrient-rich potential for livestock, not every pound gets a second life, said Mary MacDonald with the Ohio Craft Brewers Association.
“In some cases, it might just be like, ‘Well, it's just easier to put it in the trash,’” MacDonald said.
When that happens, there are consequences. Organic waste breaks down in landfills and produces methane, a greenhouse gas that is nearly 30 times more potent than carbon dioxide at trapping heat in the atmosphere.
In a top craft-beer-producing state, like Ohio, the decisions of local craft breweries add up. There are upwards of 400 craft breweries here that make around a million barrels of beer each year.
Each barrel requires around 60 pounds of grain, which eventually needs to be disposed of. MacDonald said feeding it to livestock benefits everyone.
“It's a win for the farmer because they're giving a more affordable feed,” she said. “And then it's a win for the environment because less spent grain is going to the landfill.”
Across the state, urban breweries donate their spent grain to nearby farms. Some community organizations, like the Rust Belt Riders in Cleveland, even collect local beer byproducts to power community composting. All of that requires travel and coordination.
But, at Wooly Pig, the farm is just steps away from the brewhouse.
“We're trying to minimize what goes down the drain, as well as get as much of it to the animals as possible,” Ely explained.
Part of a larger ethos
The swine are one sustainability measure of many at the rural brewery: Solar arrays power their electric brew kettle. They recycle heat from that kettle into the taproom. Even cleaning products are carefully conserved.
With each of these changes, Ely isn’t necessarily out to save the world. It’s a matter of business survival.
“One of things that is often forgotten about sustainability is one of the huge byproducts of it is saving tons of money,” he said.
Plus, he said it doesn’t require a ton of upfront investment. The federal government has halted some grant programs that helped connect rural businesses, like Wooly Pig, with solar and other renewable energy projects.
But Ely says even without government help, small businesses can focus first on what they can reduce and reuse. Even low-cost changes can make a big difference — like an $18 switch on the brewery’s boiler that prevents it from running all the time.
“Just by paying attention and doing things like this, we reduced our energy consumption by 3% to 4%,” he said.
He often educates other small, rural breweries on how to implement these incremental waste reductions. He says it takes trial and error. Even concocting the pig feed took a few attempts.
“We've had situations where it hasn't been blended and like…they get drunk,” Ely said.
The pig feed, like small sustainability efforts, can be stronger than expected.
