The Linkery: Great Food with a Conscience

If you are looking for a place to eat in San Diego and want to eat at a place with excellent food and a friendly staff, try The Linkery. Owner Jay Porter is progressive when it comes to the quality of your meal as well as its ecological footprint. Known to spend many weeks away from his hometown to visit with the independent farmers that raise food for the restaurant, Jay also works very hard to bring you a meal without causing harm to the environment.

When we took some friends for dinner the other night, we were seriously impressed with the entire dinner. Instead of bottled water we were offered a carafe of cold, sage-infused water. Our silverware was wrapped in hemp, reusable napkins and what we thought was candlelight was actually a fuel-cell light. There were a variety of organic and vegetarian meals as well as local brews and wines. I really think the reusable To-Go boxes is really innovative. (food in plastic or styrofoam containers makes me cringe)

New Takeaway Containers, Greenstyle
Posted by Jay on Saturday, 18 August 2007

We’re continuing to try to reduce our environmental footprint, particularly with consumables waste — paper, tinfoil, plastic, etc. To-go containers have been a bugaboo for us, the tin foil pie-pan containers we’ve been using are not reusable and I understand they are very resource-intensive to make.

Starting this weekend, we’re going to pack all our to-go orders in heavier, dishwasher-safe, reusable plastic boxes. These containers cost us about a buck each, and for each container in a takeout order we’ll charge a buck.

If you like the container and want to use it at home, great. But if you don’t want it, just bring it back to us at any time and we’ll give you your buck back. As Chef Tell would say, “very simple, very easy.”

Also, if you prefer, you can bring your own container in and we’ll put your food in that, and then the dollar doesn’t even make the circuit.

In any event, we’re pleased to be trying this new system, which will allow us all to reduce waste without costing anything. Which we think is cool.

If you like a good local brew and some good food to go with it, join us at The Linkery Aug 28th for the Green Flash Brewmaster's Dinner.

Foster's, a new Sustainable Brew...well, almost

We at LiveGreen love to throw back a few after a long days work and are always on the lookout for beers and other beverages made by companies working towards sustainability. One can always find a Fat Tire at my place ;)

CBS News reported today that Australian beer maker Foster's will be using brewery waste to create a fuel cell that could power a house. Two kilowatts may not be that much energy for a brewery, but this scale up technology could lead to better bacterial fuel cells.

All I know is that when you come over for a party, Foster's just might be on tap!

Green Drinks in Encinitas!!!! Migrate Home, April 25th

We are totally thrilled to see that Green Drinks will be held in our home town of Encinitas this month!!!! Come join us at Migrate Home on April 25th, 6-9pm!

Spring is in the air! I'd like to wish everyone a Happy Eastre. No, that's not a mis-spelling, but a shout out to the Anglo-Saxon goddess of spring, from whose name the word "Easter" is derived from. (gotta love that wikipedia)

GreenDrinks celebrates spring by migrating to North County. Lindy at Migrate Home has been gracious enough to invite Greendrinks into her new eco-boutique in the Lumberyard in Encinitas on Highway 101. It's a great new place and has an outdoor area for us all to enjoy what I hope will be another textbook evening. Last month was great, overwhelming the folks at the La Jolla Brew House, and I'd like to thank everyone for making it. We're pretty much a flash mob, showing up en masse and taking over.

I look forward to seeing everyone. This is not a bar, so anyone who wishes to bring a bottle of wine, some beer (great organic wines and beers out there) or their favorite libation will not be turned away. We'll be supplying some refreshments, but we'll have an empty ice chest as well. (any web-type folks out there who would like to help, I'd like to set up a GreenDrinks carpooling bulletin board. Let me know if you have any ideas. - JS)

Keep living (and drinking) green, and see you on the 25th. (Note the move to Wednesday)

John


Migrate Home, 937 S. Coast Highway 101, suite C103, Encinitas, CA 92024

A Tour of the New Belgium Brewery - Act One

While bumming around Fort Collins, Colorado, LiveGreen had the chance to meet with New Belgium Brewery's Sustainability Specialist Nicolas Theisen for a tour. New Belgium is not your average brewery. Along with making beer, the creators of Fat Tire are pushing the envelope of sustainable business development while incubating a culture of eccentric genius. Come with us as we take you through the first part of our journey through Nirvana.

First stop is an explanation of the Process Water Treatment Facility where waste water from the brewery is pumped into anaerobic (without oxygen) and aerobic (whith oxygen) ponds to reduce the amount of organic waste and water sent on to the Fort Collins municipal plant. Initially built in 2001, the facility was expanded last year to double its capacity. The ponds harness the power of a diverse set of microbes to reduce organic waste. A balloon placed over the anaerobic pond captures methane released from bacteria degrading the organic waste which is then used to power a combined heat and power engine. Last year, New Belgium ran the engine for six months to produce 400,000 kW of electricity. At full load, there is a potential output of 100,000 kWh per month which could meet 15% of the brewery’s needs for electricity.

Step along to Brew House One. Not used anymore for daily brewing, there are plans to use this original brew house for specialty brews or to handle overflow from Brew House Two. Brew House Two is a bit loud and hot because this is where the magic happens. Everyday, three truck loads of grain are used for brewing. The amount of energy needed to heat the large volumes of water used at New Belgium is drastically lower than normal breweries. On the ground floor of Brew House Two can be found heat exchangers that use counter flow technology to save energy in the form of hot water. By passing the hot wort (unfermented beer) next to cold water coming in to be heated, the hot wort warms the cold water, thereby reducing the amount of energy needed to boil the water as well as cooling the wort, which reduces the energy needed to cool the wort. Water is one of the most energy taxing molecules to heat or cool, so using water as a type of energy battery is very efficient. This is just one way in which New Belgium uses heat exchangers. Another heat exchanger uses glycol to capture heat which is then used to heat the loading docks to eliminate the need for deicing.

Come up the stairs to a pavilion on top of the three huge brew tanks. It’s even hotter up here…we’re standing on top of huge tanks heated to 200 degrees Fahrenheit. This area is used for tours and entertaining. The brewery opens the pavilion up 10 times a year for local non-profit organizations to hold events and provides catering and a New Belgium bike to raffle. All free of charge. This is all part of the New Belgium philanthropic and sustainable attributes. Employee-owned, New Belgium contributes $1 for each barrel sold to a philanthropic cause within its distribution zone. This resulted in $400,000 last year alone. With a doubling in capacity expected this year, New Belgium could donate almost one million dollars next year! Check out the website to apply.

At 400,000 barrels per year, New Belgium is the third largest craft brewery (15,000 to 2 million barrels per year) in America today, surpassed only by Sierra Nevada and Sam Adams. A new packaging facility coming online right now is excepted to double this number. Truly amazing when you hear that back in 1992, New Belgium started in the basement of founders’ Jeff Lebesch and Kim Jordan's house.

So, how is this magical elixir made? Nic took us through the process as we looked into the first tank.

This is our mill, we have all of our grain silos out back. We get three truckloads of grain a day. As it comes in we mill it and put it in here with hot water. At this point, the hot water is breaking down the starches into fermentable sugars. It’s just like a hot cereal with barley, sometimes oats or wheat…we don’t use rice or corn. This is what really effects the product that comes out. The heat of the water and how long you keep it in the tank changes the amount of sugars available. It’s not only the ingredients that effect beer, it’s also the process.

Come on over to the second tank where Nic points out a mosaic surrounding the tank.


These mosaics are done by a local artist. New Belgium likes to support local artists…all of our labels are done by local artists. This mosaic is “A Day in the Life of a New Belgium Employee”. They get up, go on a bike ride…check it out. This tank is the Lauter Tun, lauter is german for straining. This is where we’re going to separate all that grain from the liquid. This grain is by far our largest waste product. We get three truck loads in a day and three truck loads out. This by-product is sent to a local feed lot and is a great example of a closed loop system.

Over to the last tank which is the prized energy saving design, the Merlin Brewing Vessel.


The brewing process is by far the highest energy use of the brewery. Nothing compares to heating all of this water, so the more energy you can capture, such as in the energy transfer plates, the better. This is an example of using less energy. You’re bringing the wort up to very high temperatures for multiple reasons. One is to sanitize the beer, so when you add the yeast there is no contamination. Two, you boil off impurities which in this case are in the form of aromas. This doesn’t effect the taste really, but can save your beer from smelling foul. And then three, this is where we’ll add herbs and spices as well as the hops. High temperatures are needed to get the flavors out.

The standard way of heating is a jacketed tank that heats the liquid from the outside. What we use is a cone and a quarter inch of liquid is poured down the cone which flash boils it. This instantly boils the wort, what would normally take hours takes minutes to heat. So we save 65-75% of the natural gas needed to heat it. And then, rather than piping that steam out, which is energy, we have a copper coil running through there to condense and capture the water which is then used to clean the tanks as well as capturing the heat.

Having fun? This place is awesome. Here we stop for a taste of New Belgium’s seasonal beer, Springboard Ale. While at the bar, a tour invades and the host starts a funky music video…watch it here!




Talking with Nic, he tells me of plans to start generating even more power onsite using wind and solar. The brewery is situated on the northern end of town and has a great wind potential from Wyoming.

That ends this part of the tour...check back soon for our next segment!