Ep66 — Gipsy Hill's Sam McMeekin on Brewing Sustainably

Will brewing ever truly manage to become ‘sustainable’? Acknowledged by the UK government as a highly energy intensive sector of the economy, the industrial act of making beer has a far larger drain on our natural resources than those simply caused by heating liquid up and cooling it down again.

Brewing uses a massive amount of water for a start, whether that’s for cleaning, packaging, or making the beer itself. More pertinently, there’s the fact that brewing is almost wholly reliant on industrial agriculture perennially lurking in its sizable shadow. The production of grain and hops for brewing has, arguably, the biggest impact on the industry's carbon footprint, which is why breweries like Gipsy Hill in South London are looking for ways to mitigate this.

The brewery’s founder, Sam McMeekin, has appeared on this podcast before speaking about what’s know as ‘regenerative agriculture’ – a system of sustainable cultivation that endeavours to increase the amount of carbon locked away by soils and their surrounding ecosystems. At FyneFest in 2022 the brewery was pouring a beer called Regenerator, which in addition to using regeneratively farmed barley malt, also utilised second use hops, reclaimed using a centrifugal filter Gipsy Hill has invested a considerable amount of money in.

In August 2024 I paid a visit to the brewery to learn more about its investment into sustainable beer production. Regenerator has now spawned two new core beers. Called Trail (a pale ale) and Swell (a lager) both breweries use completely regeneratively farmed barley, contracted directly by Gipsy Hill and then malted for them at Warminster Maltings. 

A lot happened at Gipsy Hill after this conversation was recorded, including its acquisition by Sunrise Alliance Beverages – a step it took to avoid putting the company into administration. Which begs the question – can breweries actually afford to invest in sustainability at a meaningful level? Tune in to hear about the efforts Sam and Gipsy Hill continue to make in reducing this brewery’s carbon footprint.

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