Posted Apr 22, 2013 |
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Well the day has arrived, Earth Day 2013. It is amazing to see how much Earth Day has grown in just the recent years. When I woke up this morning and starting looking at all the social media outlets that we use here at Mother Earth I was amazed to see how many posts and tweets there were about Earth Day!
Two of the most common posts I saw were, “What are you doing to celebrate Earth Day?” and “What is Earth Day?" Well, after seeing all these posts I decided to write a quick blog about a day that has so much to do with the way we conduct business here at Mother Earth Brewing.
Earth Day began on April 22, 1970 and has been an important day ever since. It's a day to reflect on our planet, our environment, and what we can do to help keep them healthy. Earth Day is an annual day on which events are held worldwide to demonstrate support for environmental protection. It is now coordinated globally and is celebrated in more than 192 countries every year!
For us at Mother Earth, April 22nd is always a great day that we look forward to, but we also live our lives and operate Mother Earth Brewing as if it were Earth Day every day. We often get questions about our name and what we do for the environment. For me to write everything we do to protect “Mother Earth” would really take a long time so I will give a few highlights.
We pride ourselves in providing the highest quality beers consistently but also giving back to the local community, and giving back to the earth by sourcing from North Carolina vendors for our packaging, ingredients, and design work whenever possible. We actively seek mutually-beneficial partnerships aimed at strengthening the local economy whenever we can.
Rather than construct a new building, we envisioned renewing an old uncared-for brick structure with the spirit of Mother Earth herself. We dove into a thorough study of environmentally friendly construction material. Less than a year later, we reached our goal. Various building materials color the brewery green from top to bottom. By choosing an old building with a lot of “character” we were able to use all found and reclaimed products when we could. That not only gives back to Mother Earth, it gives the building the warmth and character that make coming to work every day fun!
Recycled blue jean insulation was used to insulate the walls, soy-based spray foam insulation protects the second story ceiling, and Low VOC (volatile organic compounds) paint covers the walls. The flooring wasn't ignored, either. Mother Earth Brewing's corporate offices have eco carpet partially made from renewable resources. Eco flush valves on toilets know just the right amount of water needed for "the job" and reduce water needed for flushing by 30%. Eco faucets in the bathrooms offer an unimaginable savings in water compared to conventional faucets. State-of the-art tankless water heaters heat water on demand, instead of using needless energy to keep hundreds of gallons of water heated at all times.
We have always pursued sustainability initiatives throughout the creation of our brand. We have installed solar panels that now provide 100% of our taproom power, engineered a glycol-chilled, 100% freon-free cooler to store our beer, and constructed rain barrels and a cistern to collect and distribute rainwater efficiently throughout the brewery. We are Gold L.E.E.D. (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certified and are always looking for new ways to reduce, reuse, and recycle. We are proud to say that we are the first production brewery in the country to attain this certification, and this achievement makes us so proud.
This is just scratching the service on all we have going on at Mother Earth. During our LEED® certification “performance period” we added a ton of policies and procedures that we follow to conduct business to further reduce our carbon footprint. I guess we just felt it important on this monumental day to speak our mind and let everyone know how much we value the Earth and everything she provides for us.
So, in conclusion, try to make it a point today and go outside. Whether you are out walking, riding a bike, or drinking a Weeping Willow Wit, think just how much you enjoy all the beautiful things Mother Earth has to offer, even if it does feel like February on this great day of April 22nd in Eastern North Carolina. :)
Brrrr….Trent
Posted Apr 01, 2013 |
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Spring is in the air and we are really starting to get rolling here at Mother Earth Brewing. We have had a fun- filled and extremely busy March and we are just getting warmed up! The weather is starting to get warm and April is the month that we are celebrating NC Beer month as well as Earth Day on April 22nd.
Needless to say, Mother Earth Brewing and the month of April seem like a perfect match!
So what is North Carolina Beer Month?? North Carolina is becoming an outstanding beer state, and Craft breweries are really starting to flourish from Western NC to Eastern NC. North Carolina is standing strong with about 75 statewide — it’s actually hard to keep an up-to-date count with new breweries constantly on the horizon, but we do know that North Carolina has the highest total between Pennsylvania and Texas.
Here at Mother Earth we travel all over the South to promote good, handmade craft beer, but in April of 2013, we are dedicating it all to the state where we live, work, and play! This April, we will celebrate North Carolina beer culture with festivals, beer weeks, collaborative brews, guest taps, and even some handmade Beer-BQ- sauce made by the brewers of Mother Earth.
Mother Earth Brewing and NC Beer Month really go great together because it gives us the opportunity to invite people to our area of the state and show people what we have going on down here in our neck of the woods. We have really been passionate about growing Mother Earth into a regional brewery and promoting sustainability, but Stephen Hill, Co-founder and CEO of Mother Earth has really taken it to the next level with promoting downtown Kinston. In addition to the brewery, we have added a music venue called The Red Room that is open every Friday and Saturday night that showcases live NC Homegrown music. We are also in the process of re-vitalizing an “Old Neighborhood” J and turning it in to an arts community where local artist can live in the neighborhood and showcase their art from the comfort of their home. This is just a snippet of what we are doing for Kinston and North Carolina Tourism and look forward to having everyone down to Kinston during NC Beer Month to show off our digs.
So, here are a few things we are offering in our support of NC Beer Month:
- Starting this Wednesday (4/3/2013) we will be putting on a guest tap in the Mother Earth Tap room from another NC brewery. We will have a new NC Beer on Tap each week during the month of April to showcase our friends in the NC beer community. Keep an eye on our Facebook and Twitter feeds to see which new guest tap is going on each week!
- We’re excited to release our first ever collaboration beer in April, brewed with our great friends at NoDa Brewing in Charlotte! It’s called, “Word To Your MoDa”, a Red Saison brewed with cardamom and apricot. Look for it at the Mother Earth and NoDa Tap Room as well as select bars and restaurants all over North Carolina!
- The Brewers at Mother Earth came up with a fantastic concoction of Beer -BQ -Sauce called Love your Mother ® - Look for this sauce at the Mother Earth Tap Room and other NC brewery Tap rooms across NC, as well as the nearly world famous BBQ Festival on the Neuse in Downtown Kinston the first weekend in May.
These are just a few highlights of the things we are doing for NC Beer Month. For a full list of what is going on please visit www.ncbeermonth.com
The North Carolina Division of Tourism, The North Carolina Brewers Guild, and all the participating breweries in North Carolina invite you to experience the State of Southern beer. April 2013 is the month and year, when everyone comes together for the inaugural NC Beer Month.
Cheers to all, Happy NC Beer Month, and Happy Earth Day……Trent
Posted Feb 26, 2013 |
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What a great and busy month we have had at Mother Earth. In addition to releasing the third beer in our Windowpane Series, Fig and Raisin, we also received our LEED® Gold certification. We are very proud to receive LEED® certification and we have made it into a lifestyle, both in our personal and in our business lives. For those of you who don’t know, LEED® (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) is a voluntary, consensus-based, market-driven program sponsored by the US Green Building Council (USGBC) that provides third-party verification of green buildings. We have always looked for ways to reduce our carbon footprint as Mother Earth has continued to grow, so you can imagine how many fun and touching stories we have. One, in particular, we shared over a year ago but found it fitting to share this story again this month in celebration of our Gold LEED® certification and as we get ready for Earth Day in April.
Over three and a half years ago, Mother Earth Brewing began making great beer brewed close to nature. Since that time, we have actively searched for opportunities that not only limit our footprint, but also give back to the land, creating a cycle of sorts that benefits us all in some small way. This is a story about one such opportunity.
As you probably know, malt is a main ingredient of beer. What you might not know is that breweries use A LOT of malt. In fact, the average 40bbl batch of beer (the size of the batches we brew at Mother Earth) requires 2,400 lbs. of malt. Malt arrives at the brewery in 55 pound “malt bags”- picture the modern version of a burlap sack. Once the malt is added to the brew, the bag has fulfilled its purpose and is tossed aside. It is easy to see how those malt bags quickly accumulate. Walk into nearly any craft brewery, and in some random corner, you’re likely to come across a disheveled stack of discarded malt bags.
One day, Mother Earth Brewmaster Josh Brewer glanced over at that ever-growing pile, and said to himself, "There must be some way to give those bags a purpose again.” In an effort to do so, he created a simple post on Craigslist: “Free malt bags.” What happened next truly amazed us. Just moments after making the post, Josh received a response: “I’ll take all the bags you have.” The reply came from James West at the North Carolina Forest Service. As the Nursery and Tree Improvement Program Head, James knew just how to re-purpose those bags: to help collect some 70,000 pounds of tree seeds. A few emails later, James was on his way from Goldsboro to claim an enormous stack of malt bags.
You might be surprised to learn that the North Carolina Forest Service operates a massive “seedling” program (a seedling is a young plant, grown from a seed.) The program began in 1954, and starts about 3 million trees a year from the 70,000 pounds of seed collected across NC. Every County in NC collects seeds (a tedious process done by hand), places the seeds in malt bags, and sends the seeds to Goldsboro to be cleaned and otherwise prepared for planting. About 50 different species are collected. Once the seeds develop into one year old seedlings, they are used for forest, wetlands and wildlife restoration. To successfully operate the program, the North Carolina Forest Service used to purchase roughly 2,500 malt bags a year. Not any longer.
The partnership between Mother Earth Brewing and the North Carolina Forest Service not only makes that disheveled pile of malt bags disappear, it offers Mother Earth one more opportunity to give back to the land and yet another way to reduce our carbon footprint.
So, as you go throughout your day and months ahead, think to yourself, “What can you do to reduce your carbon footprint and what can you do to savor the goodness of Mother Earth?"
Wishing Everyone, Peace, Love, and Beer®,
Trent
Posted Jan 18, 2013 |
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Happy New Year from all of us here at Mother Earth Brewing! 2012 was a fantastic year for us here at the brewery…we nearly doubled our beer production from 2011, had a great response to our brews at the SAVOR event in Washington, DC, won our first Great American Beer Festival medal (a bronze medal for Dark Cloud!), and for the first time expanded our distribution outside of North Carolina and began distributing both in Georgia and in Washington, DC. We’re already full speed ahead in 2013 pumping out brews for the masses, so I wanted to take a few minutes and tell you about three special brews coming out in the next month that we’re really pumped about.
We released the first two brews in our Windowpane Series last year, Blackberries and Peaches, and the response was off the chart, with both getting major recognition across the state and even the country. In January, we plan to release number three in the series, Windowpane: Figs & Raisins. This brew had humble beginnings a couple of years ago as a collaboration with our friends at Carriage House Distillery in Lenoir, NC and The Raleigh Times Bar in Raleigh, NC. Those two groups hooked us up with one of Carriage House’s apple brandy barrels and told us to concoct something to age in it for a special dinner. So after thinking on it for a week, Brewmaster Josh Brewer woke up one morning and knew exactly what he wanted to do: an Abbey Dubbel, fermented with dried figs and raisins, and aged in the apple brandy barrel. It turned out to be AMAZING, with an awesome sweetness from the dried fruits across the malty Dubbel base. Needless to say, it was only around for mere minutes before it was promptly consumed. But it was so awesome, that it’s now being reborn and we’re making it available statewide! Look for this brew to land in late January at select bottle shops and bars across NC.
The fourth and final installment in the Windowpane Series is coming down the pipe in February: Windowpane Raspberries. We really went barrel crazy on this one: it uses a Double American Wheat as the base (the same base found in Windowpane Peaches), but this time fermented with raspberries. Half of the beer is aged in Chardonnay barrels, with the other half being aged in Pinot Noir barrels. The two are then blended together before being bottled. This one is coming along nicely during its aging process in the barrels, and we can’t wait to pull it out and let you try it. Look for this ruby red beauty to land around Valentine’s Day.
The last beer I want to tell you about is one that we’re super excited about. While ahead of his brew schedule one December morning, Josh grew a wild hair and decided he wanted to do something crazy, blurring classic style lines a little to create something unique, so he fired up the kettle and went to work. The result of this creative outburst? A German Pale Ale we’re calling Batch 533. We started out with our Endless River Kolsch as a base, but the brew took a left turn once it got to the fermenter, being fermented with IPA yeast and also dry-hopped with two different varieties of Hallertauer hops. The resulting beer turns out to be light-bodied and refreshing, with a huge citrusy hop nose and flavor. This beer will be SUPER limited, and only available on draft at select NC watering holes in late January. This is the first, last and only time we’ll ever see Batch 533, so enjoy this very limited draft only release while it lasts!
This is just scratching the surface for the exciting stuff we’ve got in store for 2013. We can’t wait to share these awesome brews with you, along with many more, and we can’t wait to see you out and about at festivals, beer dinners, tap takeovers, and hanging out with us here at the Mother Earth Tap Room. Thanks for continuing to rock Mother Earth brews, and we can’t wait to see what 2013 has in store for us all!
Peace, Love & Beer…………………………………………………………..TM
Posted Nov 26, 2012 |
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The official Silent Night 2011 release party will take place on Saturday, December 1st at the Mother Earth Brewing Tap Room. Not only will we debut 2012 Silent Night, we’ll also have 2010 and 2011 Silent Night on tap so you can enjoy a three year vertical tasting. Of course, a limited number of Silent Night bottles will be for sale- last year we sold out incredibly fast, and we expect that this year’s Silent Night will be equally popular. We’ve heard lots of talk about people giving Silent Night as a cherished holiday gift; pair it with a Mother Earth Brewing snifter glass or ornament for a complete package of holiday cheer.
What's so special about this year's Silent Night?
So here’s something that’s got us extra pumped about 2011 Silent Night: Counter Culture Coffee tweaked their classic 1922 Mocha & Java blend just for us to give Silent Night an even more pronounced note of rich dark chocolate. For added body, richness, and complexity, we also mixed in Counter Culture's sweet, heirloom Jagong coffee from northern Sumatra. Four pounds of savory beans went in each 40bbl batch. They were rough ground and steeped in the whirlpool for an hour. Hmmm, Savor the Goodness!!!!
Details below of the Silent Night Release:
Saturday, December 1
Official SILENT NIGHT Release Party featuring MANDOLIN ORANGE
The party gets started here at the brewery at 1pm on Saturday, December 1st! We’ll have 750ml bottles of 2012 Silent Night available for purchase for the first time, as well as having Silent Night on tap for the first time. We’ll also have both 2011 and 2010 Silent Night on tap as well, so you can try a three year vertical tasting of all the Silent Night we’ve produced!
LIVE MUSIC
Also, starting at 7pm, we’re happy to bring the amazing music of Mandolin Orange to the Tap Room! Formed in Chapel Hill in 2009, the duo of Andrew Marlin and Emily Frantz has toured all over the world playing their own style of folk rock, bluegrass and indie rock. They’ve received critical acclaim having toured with Rosanne Cash, Chatham County Line, and the Steep Canyon Rangers, among others. You’ll want to come for the beer and stay for the amazing music of Mandolin Orange! Check out their website! http://www.mandolinorange.com/
COFFEE
Coffee is a prominent flavor in Silent Night! So, to celebrate on release day, Matt Souza of Counter Culture will be hanging out in the Tap Room with a commercial espresso machine, making lattes, Americanos, and other awesome coffee drinks using the Silent Night blend!
BOOK SIGNINGS
Our good friend Johanna Kramer will be at the opening to sign her book, Food Lover’s Guide to Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill. The ultimate guide to Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill’s food scene provides the inside scoop on the best places to find, enjoy, and celebrate local culinary offerings. Engagingly written by Johanna Kramer, a local foodie, this Food Lovers’ Guide is a one-stop compendium for residents and visitors alike to find producers and purveyors of tasty local specialties, as well as a rich array of other, indispensable food-related information including: Food festivals and culinary events, Farmers’ markets, Keeping up with food news, Food Trucks, Specialty food shops, One-of-a-kind restaurants and landmark eateries, Recipes using local ingredients and traditions, and the best breweries and brewpubs.
This guide has all the best in the way of food that Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill has to offer. There are numerous recipes from top local chefs, as well as interesting notes on foods unique to North Carolina. Consumer interest in all things local is at a high point. Food Lovers’ Guide to Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill is the ultimate resource for food lovers to use and savor.
Johanna Kramer is a North Carolina-based freelance writer who specializes in writing about food and food-related events through her popular blog, Durhamfoodie. She writes for magazines such as SavorNC and Edible Piedmont. She also hosts special events and develops business opportunities for Edible Piedmont, a member of the Edible Communities Publications, the recipient of the 2011 James Beard Award for Publication of the Year. Johanna’s Durham Foodie blog features local food events, cookbook reviews, artisanal product reviews, and on-the-spot reporting through her Twitter feed. Her foodie tweet-up’s is a “meet-up” of food lovers sponsored by local eateries—sell out in minutes of being posted online. For two years now Johanna has been invited to put her taste buds to work as a judge at the Good Food Awards in San Francisco. She is also very committed to the farm-to-fork movement, working closely with the Carolina Farm Stewardship Association (CFSA) promoting its annual farm tours through social media and public relations, most recently instructing farmers on how to use social media to promote their individual products thanks to a grant from the Golden Leaf Foundation. You can reach Johanna on Twitter @durhamfoodie or Facebook at Durhamfoodie.
To add to the festivities, we're also excited to welcome our good friend Anne Fitten Glenn to the party as well! Anne Fitten has been blogging as Edgy Mama (will trade kids for beer) since early 2005. She writes a weekly humorous parenting column of the same name for Asheville's newsweekly Mountain Xpress. She also writes a biweekly column on craft beer for Mountain Xpress and has a second blog called Brewgasm (intense shudder of delight imparted by the taste of a great craft beer). She works as a freelance writer and photographer a variety of other print and on-line outlets when she’s not kid-wrangling or drinking beer. Anne Fitten will be hanging out discussing and signing copies of her brand new book "Asheville Beer: An Intoxicating History of Mountain Brewing" during the afternoon! Check back for updates on times!
MORE
And if that was not exciting enough, The Red Room located at 220 N Herritage Street will open its doors at 8PM for The Ray and Bobby band. Local musicians Ray and Bobby will entertain the crowd with their mix of music.
As always the Mother Crew wishes you Peace, Love, and Beer and Happy Holidays!!!!
Posted Oct 22, 2012 |
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What were you doing on October 13th? Chances are you don’t remember, but it’s a date we will remember for years to come. That’s because we were sitting in a massive hall, packed with brewers from across the nation, and heard an amazing announcement: Mother Earth Brewing won a Bronze medal at the Great American Beer Festival (GABF.) The timing was perfect - just as we celebrated our 3rd year of operation! Remember that incredible party in the Mother Earth Brewing parking lot? Man that was awesome!! It seems so long ago.
Our bronze medal was for our Dark Cloud, Munich-Style Dunkel. Always a favorite and sure to be even more in demand now.
If you aren’t a big craft beer lover, it’s hard to explain the significance of winning at the GABF. It’s no exaggeration that a win at the GABF is what every brewery strives for; it’s the ultimate beer award. The GABF is put on by the Brewers Association, a not-for-profit trade association dedicated to small and independent American brewers. Brewers Association members make more than 99 percent of the beer brewed in the U.S. Over 4,000 beers were entered in this year’s GABF!
Here are some more cool stats.
GABF by the Numbers
- The festival sold out in 45 minutes during the public ticket sale.
- 2,700+ beers in the festival hall—the biggest selection of American beers ever served.
- More than 36,500 gallons of beer served.
- 49,000 attendees
- The first festival was held in 1982 at the Harvest House Hotel in Boulder. There were 22 breweries, 40 beers and 800 attendees. This year, 666 breweries entered the competition!
- Average number of beers in each style category: 51
- 185 beer judges, from 11 countries participating
If you want to learn more, check out the GABF website.
Stephen, Josh, and I raise a pint to all Mother Earth Brewing team members; we are so thankful to have such a dynamic team. And thanks again to all of you for helping us enjoy the start of another growing year!
Cheers……Trent
Posted Sep 05, 2012 |
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Announcing at major Mother Earth Taproom happening!
Thursday, September 6th and 7th starting at 5p
His name is Ben Prestage, and he'll be at the Taproom to give you one sensational night of Blues! You won’t believe the magic this guy produces!
Born the grandson of a Mississippi sharecropper, Ben Prestage has been soaked in Blues tradition and Mississippi culture since birth. Now’s your chance to hear all about. We’ve followed this guy for years and can promise you he never disappoints. You’ll be amazed at his ability to play guitar, banjo, harmonica, fiddle, bass, and drums while singing his own brand of Blues. Ben has won a number of awards for his unique spin on the Blues. Want to hear a bit for yourself? Check out this amazing tidbit of his work. And here's a quick run-down of his accolades!
Ben entered the International Blues Challenge (the world's largest gathering of Blues musicians) and within three consecutive years took 4th, 3rd, and 2nd place. He is also the only two-time recipient of the Lyon/Pitchford Award for "Best Diddley-Bow Player." Ben's interesting approach to instrumentation, (fingerstyle guitar, harmonica, banjo, lap-steel, fiddle, resonator guitar, foot-drums, vocals, and his award-winning original songwriting) has earned him invitations to perform across North America, Europe, and as far as North Africa. All awards aside, he has proven himself, through his live performances, to be the future of American Blues, Roots Music, Americana and is one of today’s most talented players.
Ben has played all the hottest spots in America, and we're really honored to have him visit us here in Kinston. We hope to see you there.
Peace, Love and Beer...... Trent
Posted May 02, 2012 |
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Here it comes: BBQ BASH weekend! Are you prepared? Kinston has a lot going on this weekend, and Mother Earth Brewing is right at the heart of it. It’s time for the 31st Annual BBQ Festival on the Neuse.
Here’s what’s happening: FRIDAY, MAY 4th 6:00pm.
Mother Earth Brewing is the proud sponsor of the Annual Chamber Burger and Brew Bash!
Don’t be late: at 6:00pm, activities will get moving! Get downtown early if you want to grab one of the best burgers around.
The Chamber Classic Burger will feature hand-shaped fresh burgers, cheese, chili, slaw, mustard, ketchup and onions or you can dress your burger to taste! More in the mood for a Dog? No problem, the Chamber has got you covered. They will offer Hot Diggity Dogs for sale. Of course, you’ll need some killer sweet potato fries to complete your meal by the river.
Pre and Post feast, head into Mother Earth Brewing’s Taproom, where you know you’ll see a bunch of familiar faces. Join the crowd and grab yourself a fresh, locally brewed craft beer.
Hang out in Mother Earth’s Beer Garden and then watch a dynamic fireworks show at 9:30pm. Just like last year, this promises to be an awesome display.
So, what can you expect on Tap? Of course, all the top-notch brews you have come to expect from MEB (Weeping Willow Wit anyone?) PLUS, Smokey Heart, a smoke ale created just for the Taproom by MEB’s own Matt Heart, will make an appearance! Yep, you can count on us to pour some ultra-delicious brews.
Saturday May 5th offers brewery tour after brewery tour and lots of incredible live music.
If you have not had the pleasure of going on a brewer tour, Do IT this weekend. You’ll get a sneak-peek behind the scenes (haven’t you always wondered what they do in there?) learn more about beer, and get to know some of the MEB staff. Don’t worry; we let you take your beer along on the tour!
Then, on the North Street Mother Earth Stage Pseudo Blue from Raleigh
Starts at 10:00 am!
This is a band that’s hard to define- except to say they’re awesome! Pseudo Blue is versatile, funky, bluegrassy and can put on one incredible show! No doubt; Pseudo Blue will please everyone in the crowd!
You’ll see old friends, meet new friends, and enjoy the best of Eastern NC! We look forward to chatting with you this weekend in the MEB Beer Garden!
Peace, Love and Beer… Trent
Posted Mar 28, 2012 |
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Over three years ago, Mother Earth Brewing began making great beer brewed close to nature. Since that time, Mother Earth Brewing has actively searched for opportunities that not only limit their footprint, but also ones that give back to the land, creating a cycle of sorts that benefits us all in some small way. This is a story about one such opportunity.
As you probably know, malt is a main ingredient of beer. What you might not know is that breweries use a lot of malt. In fact, the average 40bbl batch of beer (like what’s brewed at Mother Earth Brewing) requires 2,400 lbs. of malt. Malt arrives at the brewery in 55 pound “malt bags”- picture the modern version of a burlap sack. Once the malt is added to the brew, the bag has fulfilled its purpose and is tossed aside. It is easy to see how those malt bags quickly accumulate. Enter nearly any craft brewery, and in some random corner, you’re likely to come across a disheveled stack of discarded malt bags.
One day, as Josh Brewer, Head Brewer for Mother Earth Brewing, passed that ever-growing pile, he considered what opportunity might be stacked before his eyes- there must be some way to give those bags a purpose again. In an effort to do so, he created a simple post on Craigs List: “Free malt bags.” What happened next truly amazed him. Just moments after making the post, Josh received a response: “I’ll take all the bags you have.” The reply came from James West, of the North Carolina Forest Service. As the Nursery and Tree Improvement Program Head, James knew just how to re-purpose those bags: to help collect some 70,000 pounds of tree seeds. A few emails later, James was on his way from Goldsboro to claim a fat stack of malt bags.
You might be surprised to learn that the North Carolina Forest Service operates a massive “seedling” program (a seedling is a young plant, grown from a seed.) The program began in 1954, and starts about 3 million trees a year from the 70,000 pounds of seed collected across NC. Every county in NC collects seeds (a tedious process done by hand) -places the seeds in malt bags, and sends the seeds to Goldsboro to be cleaned and otherwise prepared for planting. About 50 different species are collected. Once the seeds develop into one year old seedlings, they are used for forest, wetlands and wildlife restoration. To successfully operate the program, the North Carolina Forest Service has to purchase roughly 2,500 malt bags a year. –Not any longer.
The new partnership between Mother Earth Brewing and the North Carolina Forest Service not only makes that disheveled pile of malt bags disappear, it offers Mother Earth Brewing one more opportunity to give back to the land.
Who knew a malt bag could be so powerful?
Peace, Love and Beer...Trent
Posted Feb 14, 2012 |
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The Mother Earth Brewing team is excited to announce the creation of a new beer series: Window Panes. We’ve been putting the collection together for several months now, and we know you’ll be as pumped about it as we are. Here’s what it’s all about…
Window Panes is a collection of four North Carolina inspired beers; one beer will be released every quarter of 2012. Each beer is fermented with a North Carolina fruit (blackberries, raspberries, figs and peaches) and then barrel aged for up to three months in pinot noir, chardonnay, or brandy barrels.
We’ve limited production to 20 barrels, and we’ll package Window Pane in a special 750 ml cork and cage bottle (bottle just like our Silent Night Tripel Overhead.) Of course you’ll be able to buy the bottles at the Mother Earth Brewing Taproom- and they’ll also be sold in several stores across the state. And don’t worry; you’ll be able to grab it on tap at the Taproom too. Grab a pint or a bottle and help us celebrate the fruit farmers of our awesome state.
In the coming months we’ll be releasing the 1st beer of the Window Pane series: double wit, fermented with blackberries and aged in a pinot noir barrel. I promise it’s going to be a pleaser!
Keep posted on FB for updates on its release. –And don’t forget to check out our events page for some outstanding live music!
Peace, Love and Beer… Trent
