Unlike the Chicago River, Goose Island Brewery is green all year round.
The brewery has gone green by helping Chicago’s environment. Through a partnership with the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District (MWRD), Goose Island is utilizing a byproduct of beer that can help treat sewage and clean the city’s water.
WBBM took a tour of the brewery to better understand the brewing and fermentation process and how yeast utilization comes into play.
“Here at Goose Island, we’re helping the environment by working with MWRD to reclaim our yeast, get that over to them, where they can help process all the waste water for the city of Chicago,” said Daryl Hoedtke, Senior Brewmaster.
Hoedtke has been at Goose Island for 10 years; he’s worked in every aspect at the brewery and understands how the waste can impact the environment.
“Most breweries don’t think about what they’re putting down their drains. If you think about what we’re doing in a brewery, we’re definitely producing amazing beer, creating amazing experiences for people but in the process of that, we’re definitely creating some waste,” said Hoedtke.
After fermentation, breweries create a lot of yeast that is often wasted. Goose Island takes that waste and instead repurposes the yeast to help MWRD treat Chicago water.
“In addition to the partnership we have with MWRD to reclaim our yeast, we’ve also gone another step and implemented a $2 million project to further treat our water before it makes it out to the sewers for MWRD,” said Hoedtke.
Hoedtke said it’s a great opportunity to help the community and encourages other breweries to look for ways to help.
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“We love being in Chicago, we want to be good stewards of the community so this is one of the steps that we’ve taken to do that,” said Hoedtke.
MWRD is also working with Lagunitas, Revolution and Half Acrer. The partnership has been fermenting since 2017, said Supervising Environmental Specialist Michael Goldrich. So far the partnership has reduced algae blooms and fish kills while saving the district about $1 million, officials said.
