Brewing Sustainability Practices at Wild Rose Brewery

Roses are Green?? They are at Wild Rose.

We have a number of unique "green" aspects that we employ here at the Wild Rose Brewery & Taproom, including but not limited to:

Our decor can be described as "Recycled Industrial": Most of our tables, chairs, lighting fixtures, etc. have been repurposed from other materials. If you have a chance, please stop by and check us out! Look for the beer keg chandeliers and our grundy tank bar front.
Brewing by-products: During the brewing process the malted grains are added to the brew and we're left with the "spent grains" or empty grain husks after the mash process. These "spent grains" are given to a local farmer who feeds them to his cows. Lucky cows!
Little known fact: Breweries (including Wild Rose) are 7:1 on the "good side" of the "CO2 footprint", because barley absorbs CO2 when it is growing, much more than is created in the brewing process.
Office paper recycling: Not very exciting, but important nonetheless.
Paper or plastic?: For our "to go" items, we have switched to paper bags (from plastic) and paper takeout containers (no more Styrofoam).
Suck it up: Too many drinking straws are needlessly used and tossed away every day. If you don't want a beer in our Taproom, we hope you enjoy your pop sans straw.
Bottle recycling: Every delicious (empty) bottle of Wild Rose can be re-used up to 15 or 20 times before being crushed and made into a new bottle. We also return empty juice, pop and milk containers from the Taproom.
Energy conservation: We do not turn on unnecessary lights until the Taproom opens.
Reduce, reuse: Instead of purchasing new items, we tend to look for "previously loved" items that can find a new use.
Recapture: In order to prevent water overflowing from our too small boiler system, we reused an old keg to capture the water which was previously going down the drain. Savings equal up to 75 L of hot water every day (and the energy required to heat it!).
Chill out: During the brewing process, cold water flows through a heat exchanger to cool the wort. Basically, this water gets hot while the wort is cooled. This newly hot water is stored and used to start the next batch of beer.
Step to it: After Taproom renovations we had extra blocks of concrete. These have found a new use as pathway stepping stones.
Light it up: We are actively replacing fluorescent light tubes with lower wattages.

Team Wild Rose at the Annual Inglewood River Clean-Up in Calgary.