The Lagunitas Brewing Company, the OG of IPA that has a rich, history of hop-forward and innovative craft brews, and Toast Ale, an organization that makes planet-saving beer brewed with surplus bakery bread, have collaborated with local Alvarado Street Bakery to create the exclusive, limited-edition brew – The Toast of Petaluma. In honor of this initiative, Lagunitas will make a donation to Sonoma Family Meal to feed 200 food insecure people in the community and support this nonprofit that envisions an equitable, sustainable and resilient food ecosystem.
The Toast of Petaluma is a California common lager made with Nova, a new lager yeast strain, moderately dry hopped with Loral and Citra hops, and brewed using surplus imperfect loaves of sprouted sourdough from our friends at Alvarado St. Bakery. It will be sold exclusively at the Lagunitas Petaluma TapRoom & Beer Sanctuary beginning June 7.
“Together with Toast Ale, we’ve brewed a delicious beer that also demonstrates our commitment to reducing our environmental impact,” says Paige Guzman, Lagunitas’ Chief Marketing Officer. “We take great pride in making positive changes that create a more resilient and sustainable craft brew industry, and we’re on a roll with this new partnership that truly offers a creative approach.”
Brewing Innovative Action for the Planet
Alvarado St. Bakery took 80 surplus fresh bread loaves that would have otherwise gone to waste and reduced them into crumbs. Lagunitas brewed them into 16 kegs of The Toast of Petaluma. Malt is a key beer ingredient, but it has a high carbon footprint due to the land and water required to grow barley and the energy used for malting. Using surplus bread in the grain bill has a 79% lower carbon footprint than malted barley and prevents food waste while also reducing demand for malt.
“Food production is the biggest contributor to climate change and biodiversity loss, but one-third of all food is wasted,” says Rob Wilson, Toast Co-Founder & Chief Toaster. “We have a Big Hairy Audacious Goal of preventing 1 billion slices of bread from being wasted. To achieve that, we’re brewing Toast beer with surplus bakery bread – using 25% less malted barley than other beers, and empowering our community of beer lovers to embrace the circular economy.”
Since 2016, Toast has avoided 61 tons of carbon dioxide equivalent, freed up 260,000 square meters of land, saved 100,914 gallons of water, and used more than 3 million slices of surplus bread.
Lagunitas is also making a difference beyond this partnership. The brewery sells spent grains and yeast at a significant discount to provide quality nutritional feed to farm animals in its communities. This keeps approximately 12 million pounds of waste out of landfills annually and reduces the demand for crops grown specifically for animal feed. In addition, Lagunitas only works with sustainable suppliers, recycles more than 100,000 pounds of materials per month, uses renewable energy from solar systems and an anaerobic bio-digester, treats 100% of its wastewater on-site, and maintains an overall focus on reducing waste.
Break Bread and Grab a Beer
Lagunitas packaged The Toast of Petaluma in a keg format and will offer it locally to minimize serving and distribution emissions. The new tasty brew, alongside other delicious bites, is available at the Lagunitas TapRoom & Beer Sanctuary located at 1280 N. McDowell Blvd., Petaluma, Calif. It is open Wednesday – Sunday from 11:30 a.m. – 8:00 p.m. It’s good to have friends. Raise a Toast. Save the World. Cheers!
Be the first to comment