Farm to Glass: how craft breweries help support local sustainable farming

Farm to Glass

How Craft Breweries Help Support Local Sustainable Farming

by Kirsten Breau

Editor’s Note:

Here in Southeast Georgia, we have a growing number of small batch breweries that are finding their own niche in the marketplace and, in many cases, are finding interesting ways to practice sustainability and source local ingredients.

In this issue focusing on agritourism, we thought it would be a great time to highlight a few and bring some attention to the industry. But our editor-in-chief is not much of a beer-drinker, so we needed to find someone better suited to write this article.

Enter Kirsten Breau. Kirsten was finishing up her year at Forsyth Farmers Market through VISTA Americorp and just happens to be a craft beer enthusiast. So, without even the gentlest of arm-twisting and only the promise of free beer, Kirsten agreed to check out some of the local breweries on our behalf and give us a peek into ways these small local businesses embrace sustainability.

On behalf of Kirsten and myself, thank you so much to Natalie Alexander at Southbound Brewing Company,Kevin Ryan at Service Brewing Company and Justin Carapella at Moon River Brewing Company for hostingKirsten for a tour and tasting and for your dedication to supporting our local communities. - LeeAnna Tatum

Spent grains are a by-product of the brewing process and make a protein and fiber-rich feed that can be given to cattle, pigs, sheep, goats, rabbits and chickens.

Since 2016, the majority of Americans have lived within ten miles of a brewery, making the local craft brewery a staple of communities across the United States. Craft breweries are particularly representative of the cities or towns where they are located, with many of them catering their beers to local seasons and flavors and only distributing across small areas.

Georgia boasts over 65 breweries and brewpubs throughout the state. A large number of these breweries were founded in the last year following the passing of Senate Bill 85 in October 2017. The passing of this bill allowed breweries and distilleries in Georgia to sell directly to the consumer for the first time since Prohibition.

This bill passed five years after Southbound Brewing Company, located in West Savannah, was founded. “Until September 2017, we weren’t allowed to sell pints directly to consumers, so you could come here and we could sell you a tour and we had to give you the beer for free,” explained Natalie Alexander the marketing and events coordinator for Southbound.

It was a hot June afternoon and we sat inside the taproom at Southbound Brewing, which was closed but still bustled with activity. A batch of Hop’lin IPA was being brewed behind us and the spent grain gathered in large bins to our left was waiting to be picked up by Bethesda Farms and Hunter Cattle and recycled as animal feed. Alexander continued,

“It’s pretty impressive some of the great breweriesthat have come out of that, we have a lot of strongbreweries across Georgia.”

Five breweries and brewpubs call Savannah home, of them Southbound was the first manufacturing brewery to set up in the Hostess City. Southbound’s beers have strong musical influences, upon walking through the front door of the taproom you are greeted by a larger than life guitar player painted from floor to ceiling on the wall of the mill room

in bright earthy colors. Their Discography series feature IPAs and Sours named after genres of music that they evoke. Most recently to join the series is Americana, a light, juicy IPA perfect for summer and your July 4th barbeque.

Mountain Jam is one of Southbound’s year-round brews with obvious musical influences. It is a light

bodied Southern Lager with a sweet start and hoppy finish. In the taproom you can also find an experimental tap with Mountain Jam, combining different fruits or flavors to the original recipe. “That might be something we will try to get locally sourced ingredients for, from the farmers’ market or see what’s in season,” Alexander said as she poured a sample of the aromatic and slightly sweet Strawberry Mountain Jam currently on tap.

“The challenge with craft beer is getting a lot of local ingredients,” explained Kevin Ryan co-owner of Service Brewing Company, a veteran owned and operated brewery in downtown Savannah. While there are some hops grown in Georgia, Ryan explained that hops grow better in more temperate regions. Much of the malt that is grown in the U.S. is grown in the Midwest where the open land is plentiful. For that reason, the majority of the local ingredients used in craft beers are the specialty ingredients added to the beer during the boiling process.

“We want to source as much as we can to support our local producers and our local community,” Ryan continued, “We make a Red, White and Blue beer for instance that uses hibiscus and blueberries that are grown here in Georgia.” This patriotic beer usually makes its way to the taproom for Flag Day on June 14th, highlighting Service Brewing Company’s commitment to our local community and service members.

Service Brewing is devoted to giving back to the Savannah community. To date, they raised over $100,000 for local charities. Celebrating service to others is the focal point of the tap room with a blackboard where patrons are invited to answer the question: How do you serve?

The Old Guard Bière De Garde is another brew on tap at Service highlighting a local ingredient, over 400 pounds of Savannah Bee Company honey. As we sipped the malty Belgian-, French- saison style beer Ryan described how each year the beer is a little bit different because of the unique flavors left behind by the different types of honey they incorporate from Savannah Bee Company, “Honey is 95% fermentable so it’s going to leave a little bit of flavor behind depending on the style of honey used, whether it’s wildflower or orange blossom or acacia.” This creates a beer unique not only to Savannah, but to that season and batch.

At Moon River Brewing Company, creating a beer that is unique to Savannah is part of the draw to craft brewing. While touring the historic buildingon Bay Street (formerly City Hotel, the first hotel inSavannah), Lead Brewer Justin Carapella described this attraction, “Beer should be something that you can get here and it’s a special thing to this location.Our beer doesn’t leave Georgia it’s only really in Savannah and the outlying areas.” To achieve this Carapella tries to incorporate ingredients that are seasonal and local as often as possible.

Moon River is Savannah’s only Brew Pub and predates the first brewery in the city by fourteen years. In 2013 they added a beer garden on site to take advantage of Savannah’s beautiful sunny days. Their pub’s beer menu features four year-round brews and six seasonal options, leaving a lot of room to play.

The GoLoCo Gose we sipped while we spoke was a new beer to the menu. It’s a sour ale with a surprisingly refreshing saltiness that features Loquats harvested from Old Roberds’ Dairy Farm in Savannah. It was born from a home beer Carapella crafted for the wedding of his friend, Vertu Farm owner Chris Molander, with loquats Molander had gathered.

When asked about Moon River’s commitment to sourcing locally and brewing sustainably, Carapella summed it up beautifully.

“Sustainable brewing to me is a responsibility that we have to be true to what we’re creating. To make something that is special and not just another commodity. In order to use the flavors and to make our beer interesting we have to respect where it comes from, and where the ideas come from and the people that help us get there. We have to respect the Earth. We don’t get barley or hops, or the fruits and spices, let alone water we use without keeping that stuff safe and that stuff good. It’s a focus on the quality.”