Environmental Beer Goggles

The odds are good that someday I’ll grow out of standing around a keg of beer with a bunch of friends, but luckily it hasn’t happened yet. My love affair with draft beer began in high school, but it could be a bumpy relationship. 

My parents once arrived home a bit early from a weekend away, rolling up the driveway to find 18-year-old me watering the shrubbery with the dregs of a pony keg of Busch. I said that “some kids” had left it behind after a “small gathering” I’d had. I was “doing the responsible thing” by emptying it out before returning it to the “packy,” as liquor stores are known in Massachusetts. My parents, themselves owners of a packy, looked at the spotless condition of the house and pool that I’d spent the afternoon cleaning, and decided to let it slide.

Or take the moment prior to the Super Bowl my freshman year of college when a friend and I were wrestling a half keg through the doors of our dorm lounge and a burly campus police officer strode up in all his jangly glory. “Busted,” we thought. “You guys look like you can use some help,” chuckled the officer. Sixty seconds later, the keg was in place and tapped, and he was being thanked profusely. No one ever mentioned that none of the dozens of kids watching the game were over 21.

My fondness for draft beer has continued through college fraternity parties, early-career happy hours, a semi-serious homebrewing phase, and a move to San Diego, arguably the nation’s craft beer capital. SD boasts a rotating cast of well over 100 breweries, and I’ve sampled the wares at about 75 of them. My tastes have refined, and my capacity for hangover-free indulgence has decreased, but my appreciation for the brewers’ art has not. And I happily tend to find myself in like company.

But like almost all human endeavors, drinking beer has its environmental costs. So what is a green-leaning party-thrower to do? Luckily, in our profligate, throwaway world, the humble steel beer keg is a paragon of sturdy reusability, recyclability, and thrift.

The pony keg (aka, quarter keg or quarter barrel) of my high school days holds a robust 7.75 gallons of beer, the equivalent of almost 83 12-ounce cans or bottles (about 3.5 cases of 24), while the larger half barrels we plowed through in college contain a glorious 15.5 gallons, nearly 7 cases of 12-ouncers.

A 12-ounce aluminum beer can weighs a mere 15 grams, thanks to modern manufacturing techniques; cans 50 years ago were twice as heavy, so Quint crushing the Narragansett can in Jaws was a far heftier feat of strength than it would be today. Still, by avoiding the cans in a pony keg, you save almost three pounds of aluminum. Glass bottles weigh 200 grams, so a pony keg saves nearly 37 pounds. And both cans and bottles are packaged in additional cardboard. 

While glass and aluminum are repeatedly recyclable, the packing, transport, and recycling of these materials comes at an environmental cost, and only about half of aluminum cans in the U.S. are recycled, and the rate for glass bottles is lower (recycling rates are about twice as high in states with deposits, aka “bottle bills”). So, aluminum cans are generally environmentally preferable to glass bottles, the cool grip and satisfying kiss of an icy longneck notwithstanding.

But kegs have them both beat. Some incurable nerds did a life-cycle analysis of different beer packaging, and found “kegs as the less impactful stock keeping units” compared with cans and bottles. For some reason they studied the rare single-use plastic kegs instead of the common reusable steel kegs, while the Steel Keg Association hired Deloitte to study the question and unsurprisingly found: “‘Steel kegs are truly one of the best examples of reusability and circularity, with decades of reuse potential,’ said Kyle Tanger, Managing Director in Deloitte’s U.S. sustainability practice. ‘In the U.S. compared to single-use containers, steel kegs save over 400,000 metric tons of greenhouse gases (GHGs) and keep roughly 500,000 tons of packaging out of landfills each year.’” They also claim keg beer tastes better. Biases aside, it stands to reason that kegs are much more environmentally sound than cans or bottles. (In terms of retail price per ounce of suds, cans and kegs are surprisingly about the same.)

So kegs are the eco-minded party animal’s vessel of choice. The issue with kegs is wasting beer (flashback to me emptying a keg into the bushes while my parents’ car pulls into the driveway). Even a robust party can struggle to kill the three and a half cases of beer in a quarter keg, never mind the seven in a half keg. And everyone had better like the same beer (a quality Mexican lager or Pilsner seems to hit the sweet spot). While a perfectly maintained keg system can keep beer fresh for up to four months, I’ve never met anyone who’s managed to have beer stay good for nearly that long in a kegerator. And a keg sitting in a plastic tub of ice doesn’t have a chance of staying tasty for more than a few days.

One solution is the “growler.” Growlers are re-fillable glass bottles, usually 64 ounces or 2 liters, that you can get filled with fresh draft beer at your local craft brewery. Plus, you can get a variety of beers for different palates, and you’re supporting a local brewing business — one that is likely to be more sustainable than a large-scale brew. Unopened growlers stay fresh for about a week, but once opened they should be consumed immediately, ideally within 24 hours.

One last thing: While those ubiquitous red plastic cups may have a nostalgic allure, they’re not the greenest way to serve beer at a party. Sure, they’re theoretically recyclable, but plastics recycling is shady. A better idea is to hit the local thrift shop for some reusable glass or plastic cups. Mismatched vintage glassware brings an eclectic element of whimsy to your party (most thrift stores have some cool offerings), and you can donate them back after the bash.

Five Takeaways

• Choosing a keg instead of cans or bottles reduces waste from your party.
• Consuming the beer in a quarter keg avoids 3 pounds of aluminum waste or 37 pounds of glass waste.
• If a keg is too much, aluminum cans are environmentally preferable to glass bottles.
• Refillable growlers allow you to avoid waste, and get the right amounts of the right types of beer from your local brewery.
• Stocking up on reusable glassware (or plasticware) from a thrift store beats disposable red plastic cups.

What You Can Do

When throwing a party, opt for a keg if it’s possible, or refillable growlers if it’s not. Also avoid single use plastics, as well as glitter and balloons. Also, the food you serve has a big impact, so try these hearty plant-based party dips.