Bench Brewing Company received the Sustainability Initiative award at the Canadian Brewers Choice Awards. Organized by Brewers Journal Canada, the event honours top Canadian beer makers in several categories.

“At Bench, reducing our environmental footprint is one of our core values and guides the decisions we make as a brewery. This is a huge acknowledgment of all the efforts made by our entire team to reduce our environmental impact,” said Matt Giffen, founder of Bench, adding the team was “extremely proud” to receive the award. This year marked the first time the event handed out a sustainability award.

Bench recycles 100 per cent of it brewing wastewater, using a custom water purification system to process it. That means upwards of 30,000 litres a day is reused for purposes such as irrigating the brewery’s hops field, or providing irrigation for neighbouring farms.

“Our Zero Wastewater Platform is unique and something we designed before we started construction,” said Giffen.

The brewery uses residual organics from the water treatment as fertilizer and spent grains are given to a local farmer who uses it as livestock feed. 

The Beamsville brewery was the only Niagara brewery to win an award or even be nominated. However, Merit Brewing Co. in Hamilton was a finalist for brewery of the year, which was won by a New Brunswick brewery.

Bench has also achieved Carbon Neutral Certification as of April 2021. Using a program through Radicle Climate Smart, the company reduced greenhouse gas emissions by over 60 per cent, or 788 tonnes, of carbon dioxide annually. They then purchased carbon offsets to account for the remaining amounts.

“At Bench, we are very proud of where we are from. We are surrounded by some of the most amazing orchards, vineyards and farms in the country that are run by families who have been sustainably growing fruit for over 200 years,” said Giffen. “As part of this community, we wanted to pull our weight and be just as focused on being stewards of the land. Sustainability is ingrained in our brewing culture at Bench, and we are always looking at ways we can do more.”

SOURCE: NiagaraThisWeek

Photo courtesy of CHRIS PICKLES/Metroland