Anheuser-Busch to unveil latest 'green' beer effort today

By Jeremiah McWilliams
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
07/30/2008

Anheuser-Busch Cos., the country’s biggest brewer, wants to have its U.S. breweries rely on renewable fuels for more than 15 percent of their combined energy needs by 2010.

In Houston today, the company will reveal the latest stage in that plan.

Anheuser-Busch’s breweries in Houston and Fairfield, Calif. are installing alternative energy technology that will be up and running by the end of the year.

The Houston brewery will use biogas — mostly methane — piped six miles from a landfill as part of an alternative fuel plan. When combined with the facility’s bio-energy recovery system — a system to draw energy from brewing wastewater — alternative fuels will provide more than 70 percent of the Houston brewery’s fuel needs.

Meanwhile, the Fairfield brewery will get a bio-energy recovery system (BERS) this year. A soupy culture of anaerobic bacteria will be shipped in from Los Angeles to start up the process, which involves bacteria eating particles in brewing wastewater to create methane, which helps fire a brewery’s boilers. Fairfield’s brewery will also receive electricity from on-site solar panels.

"We’ve always had a very keen interest in our environmental footprint," said Doug Muhleman, group vice president of brewing operations and technology at Anheuser-Busch’s U.S. domestic beer subsidiary.

The Fairfield brewery will generate 15 percent of its fuel needs from BERS, which by next year will be installed in 11 of the company’s 12 breweries. Anheuser-Busch’s brewery in Williamsburg, Va. is scheduled to get a BERS system next year, making the Fort Collins, Colo. facility Anheuser-Busch’s only U.S. brewery without one.

Anheuser-Busch is also mulling using wind power at its breweries in Fairfield and Fort Collins, Colo.

The company did not provide a dollar figure for the cost savings resulting from its environmental initiatives. But Anheuser-Busch envisions cutting $1 billion in costs by 2011 through a program called Blue Ocean, which includes conserving water, energy and raw materials, as well as cost cuts in numerous other areas.