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O-18. Practical sustainability projects for breweries

Presenter: Matt Bailey, Odell Brewing Co., Fort Collins, CO

Brewers feel close to the environment and are aware of the impact brewing beer has on the environment. Often, for small and large breweries, finding sustainability projects that have a significant environmental impact on operations are difficult to put into action. Common hurdles include capital, time, experience, and resources. This presentation will cover projects from Odell Brewing that can be implemented with little capital and time. The discussion will provide theory, plans, hurdles, and results of projects. Odell Brewing will cover its “closedloop” bottle line vacuum pump and “zero-landfill” projects. The closed-loop vacuum pump project converted an open-loop vacuum pump to a closed-loop pump that reuses water many times, only needing to top off water to compensate for slight evaporation. A common problem with the closed-loop system is the temperature of reused water. Cooling of reused water is accomplished using an incoming city water and heat exchanger that is then used for two additional purposes after cooling. Implementation of the vacuum pump project reduced water in the brewery 14%, equivalent to 1,321,000 gal saved in 2012. Also covered will be efforts to overcome hurdles, habits, and implementation of a zero-landfill program at a brewery.

Matt Bailey is the maintenance, engineering manager, and sustainability coordinator at Odell Brewing. He oversees all things regarding maintaining and installing new production equipment, facility upkeep, and grounds at Odell Brewing. He attended Old Dominion University in Norfolk, VA, and Colorado State University in Fort Collins, CO, to acquire a B.S. degree in electrical engineering. While in college, he picked up home brewing as a hobby, which helped fuel his passion for beer, before joining the brewery workforce. Prior to joining Odell Brewing in 2010, he worked at Anheuser-Busch in Fort Collins, working in several different areas, including instrumentation, packaging process improvement, and maintenance reliability, and as a project engineer.

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