Spent Mash Program
Did you know the leftover malt and adjuncts after the mash has extracted most of the sugars, proteins, and nutrients, can constitute as much as 85 percent of a brewery’s total by-product?
Here at 14th Star Brewery, we have had a longstanding partnership with local farms to collect all of our spent mash. These spent grains are made up of about 20% protein and 70% fiber, making them an ideal food source for farm animals! We also occasionally utilize our spent mash to make dog treats for our four-legged friends!
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Investing in Renewable Energy
Our monthly purchase through this solar array project with Eric Morris located in South Burlington directly contributes to greening up our local grid and reducing Vermont’s need for dirty energy. We appreciate Mike from SunCommon having made this connection to work together on ensuring we are doing our part to utilize renewable energy the best we can.
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Can Carrier Reuse Program
The idea is simple, bring your can carriers back to a participating brewery or retailer and they will either reuse them or donate them to another brewery that reuses them. Rather than discarding after one use, drop off your used plastic can carriers in the special reuse bin at our Brewery Taproom and our local brewers benefit from reusing the not-easily recyclable packaging!
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As a member of the Vermont Green Brewery Cohort, we have assessed our activities and identified that our significant environmental aspects/impacts include energy and water consumption.
In order to promote good environmental practices our Policy goals are:
- To identify the significant environmental impacts of our activities.
- To develop suitable objectives and targets and implement changes minimizing our significant environmental impacts during normal, abnormal and emergency conditions.
- To comply with relevant legislation, regulation and other requirements relating to our significant environmental impacts.
- To prevent pollution, minimize our use of water, electricity and resources. To minimize emissions to the atmosphere, effluents and all waste; endeavoring to re-use, recover or recycle materials wherever possible.
- To ensure that environmental responsibilities are defined, communicated and understood at all levels within our organization and provide appropriate training where needed.
- To ensure that suppliers and contractors understand the Company Policy and encourage them to develop a responsible approach to environmental issues.
- To provide information for visitors regarding our environmental practices.
- To be aware of the views of interested parties, including customers and the general public on environmental issues. To always look for ways to improve our overall environmental performance.
- To strive for continual improvement in overall environmental performance.
14th Star Brewing is committed to protecting the environment, the health and safety of our employees, and the community in which we conduct our business. It is our policy to seek improvements throughout our business operations to lessen our impact on the local and global environment by conserving energy, water, and other natural resources; reducing waste generation; recycling and purchasing environmentally preferable products; and reducing our use of toxic materials or production of toxic products and/or byproducts. We are committed to environmental excellence and pollution prevention through continual improvement and meeting or exceeding all environmental regulatory requirements.