Interview With Chris O'Brien

Last year I got the book Fermenting Revolution: How to Drink Beer and Save
The World by Chris O'Brien. I highly recommend this book, it takes
a look at the history of brewing, going back to its origins and discusses
the changes that have happened over time as brewing has changed from a
mostly female oriented small scale craft to the large mega-corporate brewing of today.
The book talks a lot about sustainability and some innovative things some
brewers in the industry are doing to be sustainable and organic. The book
really spoke to my social and political ideals, as well as my love of beer.
The book was the inspiration for me to change my own approach to the beer I
buy and make, and it eventually led me to create this blog. I've been reading
the blog Chris writes, www.beeractivist.com for some time, and decided to email
Chris and see if he'd be willing to answer some questions about homebrewing,
beer, organic and sustainable brewing. Here's what he sent back:

How did you become interested in the craft beer culture, especially
getting involved in it to the extent that you have?

I started homebrewing as a grad student in upstate New York. My reasons
for beginning the pursuit were, if not noble, at least practical. I was
living the typical meager student lifestyle. Ramen noodles, macaroni
and cheese, and cheap beer provided the bulk of my nutritional intake. I
quickly realized the pittance I was earning as a coffee barista wasn’t
enough to make ends meet. So I reviewed my expenses and looked for
places to cut costs. To be honest, it wasn’t much of a surprise when I
discovered that the majority of my discretionary spending went to beer.
But beer, like love, is a necessity, so cutting down on it was out of the
question. However, like dating, it is awfully expensive. Whatever was a poor
student to do? Woe was indeed me. My nights were sleepless, my pockets
empty, and my head in a cloud. I implored the gods, begging them to reveal a
solution. They sent me a sign. Walking home one evening from the Troy Brewpub, I
noticed a fancy little shop that had hitherto escaped my attentions. It must
have been the curvaceous carboys in the window that caught my eye. Stainless
steel brew pots behind them twinkled in the glow of the store lights. I
entered impulsively and illicit thoughts of homebrewing immediately  filled
my head. But, I wondered, would brewing beer all by myself at home be as
satisfying as getting it at a brewpub? Doing some quick calculations, I
figured I could cut my beer expenses in half by brewing myself. Not only
that, but taking the craft into my own hands promised to considerably
improve the quality of my quaff. The fact is, I rarely sprang for the
good stuff, and instead usually settled for run-of-the-mill industrial beers
that actually tasted kind of horrible. Thinking about it now, I can’t
begin to count the number of nights I took home a bag of whatever cheap
cans of beer happened to cross my path. So it was with a gleam in my eye
that I bought a pile of recreational brewing gear and some helpful
magazines, ran home, and went at it. I have been homebrewing ever since,
and an all around interest in craft beer took hold over my life from
there.

How did the Seven Bridges Cooperative get started?
As a homebrewer seeking to lighten my footprint on the planet, I soon
discovered Seven Bridges, a company that sells all organic brewing
supplies.  As a cooperative, I decided to buy my way into the small
company as an owner-member and I've now been involved with that for
about seven or eight years.

What increases have you seen in the organic home brewing market over
the past several years?
Seven Bridges has grown steadily every year and now I've seen a number of
other homebrew suppliers offering organic ingredients. None of them seem
to be certified as organic but nonetheless it's a good sign that demand  is
rising. This past year, Seven Bridges hosted the first ever AHA-sanctioned
organic homebrew contest. Two winners, one from east and west of the
Mississippi, got to brew their beers commercial organic breweries,Otter
Creek in Vermont and Santa Cruz Mountain in California.

Through your travels and experiences, what have been some really
innovative things you've seen breweries do to be sustainable?
Crannog Ales in British Columbia is probably as sustainable as they  get.
It's a farm-based organic brewery where they grow much of their own
hops on-site and they will only distribute within a small region around the
brewery so as to keep transport impacts low. In an effort to reduce
waste, they only offer kegs and growlers - no packaged beer. They feed spent
grain to their own farm animals. They also wrote a free how-to guide on
growing organic hops. All around, the couple running this place really
seems to have a deep commitment to sustainability. But larger scale
brewers are making a difference too. Sierra Nevada has an on-site solar
array, their own organic hop yard, a fuel cell set up for capturing
brewery wastes and converting them back into energy, and with the
soon-to-be installed second solar array they hope to be almost entirely
reliant on renewable energy generated right at the brewery.

Where do you think organic brewing and sustainability in brewing is
headed?
"Sustainable" business in general is just better business. Mega-brewers
have been innovating so-called sustainable practices for decades. For
example, Anheuser-Busch is the world's largest aluminum can recycler.
Business in general will continue to adopt what essentially amounts to
efficiency measures because they make financial sense. They happen to
be better for the environment too but that's not what motivates most
companies. Some brewers are exceptions and they are actually doing it
out of genuine interest in environmental causes. But ultimately, laws need
to change. Corporations need to be stripped of the power they have to
determine the course of the planet. We can't rely on companies to make
the right decisions on their own, especially considering the urgency of the
environmental crises we face. We need to legally respect the inherent
worth of nature.

What would you say to people who are skeptical and feel that organic
brewing is just a marketing gimmick or a hot trend?
Taste one of the four 2007 GABF medal winning organic beers and get
back to me.

For those of us who currently have our sights set on being sustainable
in our home brewing and trying to brew organically, what advice do you
have for us?
Try growing your own organic hops at home. It'll save you some money.
Its fun and sustainable, and you can try 'wet hopping' which seems to be
all the rage lately.
How can fair trade (which I realize is much more of an issue in coffee)
be incorporated into the craft brewing industry?
You named it, brew coffee beers with fair trade beans. A number of brewers
are already doing this, such as Shorts Brewing in Michigan and Big Boss
in Raleigh, NC. Other fair trade ingredients that can be used in beer
include cocoa, vanilla and orange. What I'd really like to see though is some
traditional African beers being made available in the U.S. through fair
trade. The best thing might be to have some recipes licensed by
traditional African brewers but brewed right here in the US, with a
licensing fee going to the originators. That'd be truly innovative but I
don't know of anyone even thinking along those lines in the beer scene.
Brewers don't seem particularly aware of fair trade at all, but maybe
with time some one will get turned onto it.