Hepworth Brewery, located in rural England just over two hours drive south of London, is 25 years old. But 10 years ago, the brewery was rebuilt from the ground up.

For Andy Hepworth, managing director and founder of the brewery, the rebuild was a opportunity to design the new facility with green technology in mind. That includes visible things like solar panels—which help power the brewery’s electric vehicles and efficient lighting—and less obvious things like extra-insulated walls and piping, heat pumps and carbon dioxide capturing equipment.

“What we couldn’t afford, we built space for,” said Hepworth by telephone interview. Hepworth says, as a private company, he can evaluate the payback on environmental investments using different metrics than public companies. But he is convinced that being green is economic, with investments typically paying for themselves within three to five years.

Doing The Difficult Stuff

“We try to do the difficult stuff,” says Hepworth, noting that in addition to the brewery’s focus on environmental stewardship, Hepworth Brewery also makes gluten-free and alcohol-free beers. “We are a very traditional British brewhouse. We compete on quality with the best.”

That focus on quality has seen the brewery win numerous awards—for its beer as well as for its environmental efforts. As a result, Hepworth makes beer not only under its own brand, but has been tapped by other beer companies to make beer for them under contract.

Environmental stewardship is built into the brewery’s ethos. Hepworth’s is one of the few small, independent brewery websites that includes a sustainability report.

“We have an experimental mindset,” said Hepworth. “We will allow people to come in to our brewery to experiment with us to use technology—as long as it doesn’t affect our beer.”

“We ask ‘why not?’ rather than asking ‘why?’” said Hepworth, explaining the brewery’s openness to trying new ideas.

Using Brewery Waste To Create Power

All breweries create organic waste, from spent grains, hops, yeast and other ingredients. Some of that waste can be used as animal feed or compost, but other times, breweries have to pay to have it hauled away. That waste is typically wet and therefore heavy and prone to rot. That’s bad for the environment, costs money, smells bad and is wasteful.

Enter WASE.

WASE is an environmental startup that has created modular electro-methanogenic reactors, utilizing electrically-active bacteria. Translation: they help breweries and other creators of organic waste to turn that waste into energy.

“We grow electrically-active bacteria,” said WASE CEO and founder, Thomas Fudge, by video interview. “As these bacteria break down organic material, they generate electrons. We direct that into generating methane. And we have technology that measures where the bacteria is working, to make the system work efficiently. It’s like a Fitbit for bacteria.”

That technology allows WASE’s system to evolve and adapt. The bacteria are naturally-occurring. But WASE is able to control their growth and activity. The system is built in modules, so breweries can get a system right-sized for them, and add to that system as the brewery grows.

With Hepworth’s experimental mindset, it was an easy decision to allow WASE to test the system at his brewery.

“It is something that we needed,” said Hepworth, noting that the brewery was already using anaerobic digestors to manage brewery waste. The WASE system is essentially that—an anaerobic digestor. But the system breaks down waste much faster, while generating methane that Hepworth can use to power brewery operations, and produces potable water.

“The results of the trial unit were really quite impressive,” said Hepworth. The brewery is now commissioning a full-scale commercial model of the WASE technology.

For now, Hepworth is using the water coming from the unit for cleaning and other brewery needs. “The water is clean enough to brew with,” said Hepworth. “But we don’t yet make beer from it.” There’s no reason not to, but there is consumer resistance to consuming reclaimed water, though other breweries have made beer from reclaimed waste water.

Located in the countryside and sourcing ingredients from local growers as much as possible, Hepworth is aware its actions affect the environment. But the same way its beers adapt to market trends—gluten-free beers and alcohol-free beers are more popular than ever—so too is Hepworth taking a leading edge position in improving its footprint, responding to the changing needs of the environment.