What’s Up In Suds

Local tree-planting project helps offset carbon footprint of Four Saints Brewing

Four Saints Brewing Company will pour a unique beer at this month’s Brewgaloo Craft Beer Festival in Raleigh, North Carolina. The Asheboro, North Carolina-based brewery teamed up with a Greensboro-based business that specializes in creating sustainability portfolios that allow businesses to offset their carbon emissions through investments in local urban forestry projects.

The company, called Urban Offsets, helped Four Saints Brewing calculate the carbon emissions associated with brewing the Founding Fathers Hemp Ale, from the purchase and transportation of ingredients all the way to the tapping of the kegs on festival day. Urban Offsets then matched the brewery with a local tree-planting project and other carbon offset projects in North Carolina that will remove an equal amount of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

“One of the beautiful things about being a craft brewery is we can experiment—not only with brewing, but also with how we operate as a company,” said Andrew Deming, one of Four Saints’ founders and head brewer. “With the Founding Fathers Hemp Ale we’re seeing if we can maximize our positive impact in the community.”

The local tree-planting project that will receive support is at the Cone Health Cancer Center Healing Gardens project in Greensboro. In addition to trees that will provide certified carbon sequestration, wildlife habitat, noise and air pollution control, the Cone garden also provides cancer patients with wheelchair accessible paths and designated areas for children, meditation and gardening.

Four Saints also is sourcing all of the ingredients for Founding Fathers Hemp Ale from North Carolina growers within 52 miles of the Fours Saint’s brew house. This includes hops grown in Pittsboro and locally grown and spent hemp flowers. The hemp seeds will replace some of the grains traditionally used to create wort, the sugary liquid that feeds the fermentation process.

Four Saints Brewing Company is brewing one pilot batch, 31 gallons, of Founding Fathers Hemp Ale for attendees of the Brewgaloo Festival to experience what carbon-neutral brewing taste likes.

“To the best of our knowledge, this is the first certified, carbon-neutral brewing in North Carolina, and perhaps even the U.S.,” said Shawn Gagné, CEO of Urban Offsets. “It’s a relatively small pilot batch, but now that the legwork is done we can easily scale the carbon neutral process developed with Four Saints to match a growing demand for locally-crafted products that also invest in their communities.

Urban Offsets has provided locally sourced carbon credits to Duke University, Delta Air Lines and Etsy, among other large institutions and corporations, but Four Saints Brewing is the first brewery. The Brewgaloo festival will take place April 27-28, 2018 on the streets of downtown Raleigh.

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About Four Saints Brewing Company

Located at 218 South Fayetteville Street in Asheboro, North Carolina, Four Saints Brewing pays homage to the patron saints of beer, Saint Wenceslaus, Saint Nicholas, Saint Luke and Saint Augustine of Hippo. The Four Saints founders, Joel McClosky and Andrew Deming, carry on the brewing tradition in the hopes of future sainthood, or at least to make some really good beer. www.foursaintsbrewing.com/home.html

About Urban Offsets

Greensboro, N.C.-based Urban Offsets helps corporations and higher education institutions invest carbon offsets in the places and relationships that matter to them. This transforms carbon offsets into assets that help fight climate change, strengthen strategic partnerships, and create climate resilient cities. Using a Sustainability Portfolio approach, Urban Offsets evaluates and grades carbon offsets and bundles them with community development programs that sustainably engage nonprofit partners in each city. Urban Offsets currently operates in 12 U.S. markets and supports more than 10,000 new trees planted in 2017. www.urbanoffsets.co