Your organisations purpose:
Production of beer and cider.
What is your impact initiative?
To produce beer and cider as responsibly and sustainably as possible in order to best protect the environment that we source our raw materials from.
The impact your initiative has had:
We focus on sourcing our raw materials locally from responsible suppliers. We have moved a significant portion of our hops used from national or international suppliers to locally-farmed alternatives. The majority of our malt is sourced within the UK, and we are looking at ways to source this from within Kent. We are also focusing on ways to improve our energy and water usage including solar panels, CO2 recovery, steam reduction, electric forklifts, and wastewater treatment.
Have you observed any direct benefits to your business or organisation as a result of the initiative?
We have launched Kent Pilsner which is brewed using exclusively hops grown in Kent. This has received a lot of positive attention from the trade and is a key area for brand growth. We are also seeing energy reductions lead to cost-savings. By diverting some of our yeast/hop material we are able to send it to a local farm as fertilizer and reduce our water and waste costs. Solar panels on our warehouse also help reduce our energy bills by charging our electric forklift. We are looking at ways to expand this to the main brewery site in the near future.
Have you observed any benefits to your visitors as a result of the initiative?
We hope to convey to our customers that, just like winemakers, brewers need to look after their environment as it's that environment that grows the raw materials required to make beer. By cutting our carbon emissions we hope to reduce the effects of global warming which are already impacting barley and hop growers negatively. Through on-site tours and marketing we aim to share with our customers where we are on that journey. We're certainly not perfect, but we want to show that we are making improvements in reducing our carbon emissions.
What category/categories does your initiative fall under?
- Reducing energy use
- Food for Good – reducing food miles, local seasonal produce, plant-based & organic
- Reducing waste
- Minimising water use & water pollution
- Local job creation
Address:
Curious Brewery, Unit 1, Victoria Road, Ashford, TN23 7HQ
Website:
Contact email address:
wesley@curiousbrewery.com
