Green Branding Beer

I am a huge fan of micro-brews and particularly Oregon ones. I do the beer buying at my job and have noticed recently that more and more breweries are branding themselves, or particular beers, as green. Not surprisingly Portland, home of more breweries than any other city in the nation (source), is leading the charge with sustainable breweries, notably Hopworks Urban Brewery and Laurelwood.

Hopworks Urban Brewery (HUB) brings together three things I love, bikes, beer, and sustainability. They call themselves an "eco-pub" and source local and organic ingredients to make their beer (and serve at their restaurant). Wuth HUB being founded by a bunch of bike nuts, its not surprising that sustainability is one of their core values. They have even created a pedal-powered "bar-bike" so they can support events without having to drive to them.

HUB has an additional list of things they are doing to be more green, besides being organic, listed on their website. It seems that have put considerable thought into making thier brewery as sustainable as they can.

Laurelwood was the first Oregon brewery to produce 100% organically certified beers. While not striving to be a sustainable brew-pub like HUB is. They are leaders in the organic beer movement and make one of my favorite beers Free-Range Red. On a social sustainability level, Laurel wood also produces Prevail IPA, with proceeds of this beer going to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.

Both of these breweries are exceptional and in perfect positions to brand themselves as green. They are 100% organic from the ground up and have sustainable thinking throughout their businesses. Its not surprising that, even though their beer are a bit more expensive (about $4.70 for a 22oz bottle), they have been very successful and both breweries have recently expanded their bottle and keg distribution areas.