Drink Local at Your Local
Submitted by Frank on Wed, 09/04/2008 - 21:30.
When you buy a pint in your local do you think about the environmental and ethical impacts of your choice?
Ethically:
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who owns the company that makes the beer: do you want to buy products from them?
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what is that company's policy towards small, local breweries, local pubs, and providing choice to customers?
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what is their attitude to the landlords and tenants?
Environmentally, there are also a number of considerations:
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what ingredients are going into your beer? Are they organic, what is their quality, where are they grown?
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how far has the beer travelled to get to you - food miles!
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packaging: draught beats bottles beats cans
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delivery: is your beer delivered using a CO2 or nitrogenated presure system, which uses additional energy to deliver the beer over a handpull and involves the manufacture of pressurised gasses?
If you drink mass produced, keg beer, then you are not only making the worst choice for the environment, and probably ethically, but you are missing out on the fantastic range of flavours that small and micro-breweries provide. Join your local branch of CAMRA to discover the best pubs in your area, which will undoubtedly supply the best in local beers.
It is surprisingly difficult to find a comprehensive directory of local beer. The best we could find is Quaffale.
Waitrose are committed to supplying local beers in each of their stores - more at Beer Pages.
Ethiscore, not surprisingly, rates the big brewers such as Heineken, Carlsberg, Anheuser-Busch (American Budweiser), and Scottish & Newcastle, much lower than regional brewers such as Brakspears, Fuller Smith & Turner (Fullers) and St Peters.
