Features
Beer Activist
By Maggie Badore
Jun 5, 2007, 13:30

  Better Beer Better World?
Chris O'Brien

We really shouldn’t be surprised that beer enthusiasts are behind some noble causes, like sustainability and genuine product diversity.

Organic beers have ever-increasing sales and the number of small-scale local breweries has skyrocketed in the past decade. Chris O’Brien and his book, Fermenting Revolution: How to Drink Beer and Save the World, are at the center of this unique campaign for a better tomorrow.

O’Brien describes beer as “the vanguard of revolutions.” The beauty of the message in Fermenting Revolution is its hopeful “we-can-do-it” attitude. It doesn’t announce the approaching doomsday, but offers positive ways to counter the homogenizing force of corporate globalization and the environmental damage caused by industrial farming. Anheuser-Busch (makers of Budweiser) may produce one in every ten commercial beers in the world, however the tide looks like it’s beginning to turn in a more diverse and flavorful direction.

A number of environmentally-minded microbreweries are popping up all over the US. “Tens of thousands of beer drinkers across the country decided they’d had enough of industrialized, mass-marketed products,” O’Brien says. This new wave of small-scale brewers not only supports local economies and tends to create less waste, but they are more likely to use sustainable techniques.
Local beer can even help fight global warming. When beer — or anything, for that matter — is consumed in the same place it was produced, less fossil fuel is used in shipping. Additionally, organic hops and wheat do not use fossil fuel-derived fertilizers.

“Compared to industrial agriculture, organic farming produces between 40-60 percent less greenhouse gas emissions.” If you happen to be in Kalamazoo, Kraftbrau Brewery makes its own organic beer.

O’Brien works at the Center for the New American Dream, an organization that promotes a sustainable consumer culture. O’Brien also writes the Beer Activist blog, which you can check out at beeractivist.com. The blog features the latest news in beer related ego-activism, like the World Naked Bike Ride, as well as cultural and historical tidbits. It also invites you to take a stand, providing information about current issues and letter-writing campaigns.
O’Brien’s optimistic message is pretty simple: “To share the fun of drinking beer and saving the world.”  | RDW

More info: beeractivist.com.

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