Milwaukee is well known for one thing, beer. They take that stuff seriously here; needless to say their professional baseball team is name "The Brewers". They do all kinds of brewing here -- commercial brewing, home brewing, micro brewing, craft brewing -- if it is brewed, you'll likely find it in Milwaukee. In fact, they love beer so much in this area they have even come up with a new type of brewing: Sustainable Brewing.
Yesterday, one of my roommates and I, along with some coworkers, went on a tour of Milwaukee Brewing Co. The tour, like any other of the kind, included beer samples (the main reason people go), a tour of the facility, and an explanation of the brewing process; however, what really caught my attention was how heavily they advertised their green initiatives. Talk about safeguarding the future of beer.
The first of these initiatives involved energy conservation. Beer brewing is a very energy intensive process: The first part of the process requires high temperatures; the latter stages require low temperatures. In order to maximize energy efficiency, this brewery uses the heat exhausted from the refrigeration cycle to partially run the boiling cycle. This in turn reminded me about thermodynamics and combined cycles, but you probably do not want me to go into that. Back to the brewery. The other energy related initiative involved alternative fuels, bio-fuels. Instead of always relying on natural gas, this brewery collects leftover vegetable oil from local restaurant and convert it to bio-diesel; with this bio-fuel they run the the boiler for the equivalent of about a month every year.
Since beer brewing is also a very water intensive process, the other main set of initiatives involved water conservation. Beer has four main components -- hops, yeast, barley, and water (look at me, I almost sound like I know what I'm talking about). Something like 90% of what you drink in beer is water, by volume (a friend of mine claims the original purpose of beer was to purify water, since alcohol kills bacteria; and I suppose people too at corresponding concentrations). A lot of water is also evaporated or is used in maintaining a clean environment. Anyway, in order to maximize water efficiency, this brewery recycles some of the water and uses it to clean the floor and such. What really blew me out of the water (no pun intended), is that this brewery actually has an initiative for people to conserve water at home: Beer me that Rock. It's very simple, really; they make bottle shaped concrete molds for people to place inside their toilet tanks. Like thermodynamics, however, that is as much as I'll say about Beer me that Rock.
...I guess I will mention one more thing; I took one of the concrete molds home. I wonder how that will affect the thermodynamics of my toilet tank.
Yesterday, one of my roommates and I, along with some coworkers, went on a tour of Milwaukee Brewing Co. The tour, like any other of the kind, included beer samples (the main reason people go), a tour of the facility, and an explanation of the brewing process; however, what really caught my attention was how heavily they advertised their green initiatives. Talk about safeguarding the future of beer.
The first of these initiatives involved energy conservation. Beer brewing is a very energy intensive process: The first part of the process requires high temperatures; the latter stages require low temperatures. In order to maximize energy efficiency, this brewery uses the heat exhausted from the refrigeration cycle to partially run the boiling cycle. This in turn reminded me about thermodynamics and combined cycles, but you probably do not want me to go into that. Back to the brewery. The other energy related initiative involved alternative fuels, bio-fuels. Instead of always relying on natural gas, this brewery collects leftover vegetable oil from local restaurant and convert it to bio-diesel; with this bio-fuel they run the the boiler for the equivalent of about a month every year.
Since beer brewing is also a very water intensive process, the other main set of initiatives involved water conservation. Beer has four main components -- hops, yeast, barley, and water (look at me, I almost sound like I know what I'm talking about). Something like 90% of what you drink in beer is water, by volume (a friend of mine claims the original purpose of beer was to purify water, since alcohol kills bacteria; and I suppose people too at corresponding concentrations). A lot of water is also evaporated or is used in maintaining a clean environment. Anyway, in order to maximize water efficiency, this brewery recycles some of the water and uses it to clean the floor and such. What really blew me out of the water (no pun intended), is that this brewery actually has an initiative for people to conserve water at home: Beer me that Rock. It's very simple, really; they make bottle shaped concrete molds for people to place inside their toilet tanks. Like thermodynamics, however, that is as much as I'll say about Beer me that Rock.
...I guess I will mention one more thing; I took one of the concrete molds home. I wonder how that will affect the thermodynamics of my toilet tank.
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