Canada’s First Sustainable Brewery
By robertludvig on Jan 13, 2010 in Technology
Being a sustainable company can mean many things, from treating your employees with respect and paying them a fair wage to using organic and recycled materials, all the way to producing your product in a building that leaves small or zero emissions. Turning Point Brewery in Vancouver, BC, Canada claims to be Canada’s first sustainable brewery. They produce a Belgian Style amber beer at their state-of-the-art brewery. The things that makes their brewery so unique is the fact that it is completely powered by a wind turbine. The following video shows the installation of the wind turbine at the brewery. Although handcrafted, the beer isn’t made with organic ingredients but they do say that they use less energy, conserve water and of course, they generate power with their wind turbine.

While I applaud anyone taking steps for sustainability Turning Point Brewery’s step is in the wrong direction and wonder what their point really is or was. There is simply not enough wind in this area for a wind turbine to produce enough energy to make it viable. Never mind the fact that a 1kW turbine could never supply enough energy for such a facility, -no matter where it was located.
So in the end ~95% of the time the company will have to either provide energy to it if they wish to show it turning, or have it stand there not spinning, as a visual reminder of what NOT to do **.
**Never install a wind turbine without a physical assessment.
Ken Schwantje | Mar 3, 2010 | Reply