Friday 27 June 2008

Iceberg Beer and Global Warming

Alan at A Good Beer Blog posts on the Greenland Brewhouse, which brews with water from melting icebergs "broken off the main inland ice" and "specially selected by local fishermen, who tow them to the brewery." So far, their beers have received decent reviews, and I'd love to try one.

This isn't the first (nor is it likely to be the last) beer to pride itself on its unique water source. Dogfish Head's Pangaea is brewed with water from Antarctica. I have to wonder, though: water is pretty heavy and bulky. How much carbon dioxide is pumped into the atmosphere transporting premium water to the brewhouse, or transporting the beer that is being widely sold solely because it's made with water that is environmentally pristine and "free from pollutants?" In this particular case, the answer seems to be "plenty:"
Due to some different laws about the bottles, the brewery has to ship the beer in huge tanks to Germany, where the beer is bottled and exported to Denmark.
According to the story, the Greenland Brewery " is very much aware of the global warming." Well, sure, their marketing gimmick is threatened by it, anyway.

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