Bryggeri Helsinki: Biogas for craft beer from the brewery’s own spent grains

The basic philosophy of Bryggeri Helsinki brewery restaurant is to marry great food and beer by designing its menus around beer. Ecological aspects are also close the Bryggeri team’s heart: the restaurant serves local food, while the beers are chilled with district cooling. The latest step is using biogas in beer production.

– In fact biogas helped solve a big problem of ours. Brewing an annual total of around 140,000 liters of beer generates up to more than 50 tonnes of spent grains as a by-product. The grains used to end up as feed for pigs and other livestock and also for composting, but now they’re picked up from us and taken to the Labio biogas plant in Lahti and turned into biogas, says Bryggeri Helsinki Managing Director Pekka Kääriäinen.

The biogas produced from the spent grains is then delivered back for use by the brewery restaurant. This means that the brewery’s mash tun as well as the restaurant’s gas cookers and patio heaters are now heated using Bryggeri Helsinki’s own energy. This creates a closed loop and is an excellent example of circular economy in practice.

Having the spent grains picked up for use as biogas feedstock has also made everyday life at the brewery easier as the green containers by the building are now emptied more frequently.

Trendy IPA the first to beer to carry the Biogas Label

Microbreweries do not aim to woo mass-market consumers. Instead, they focus on customers who appreciate diversity in beers and love trying beers out.

Brewing beer requires craft and precision. At Bryggeri Brewmaster Mathias Hüffner is in charge of the process.

In a small brewery it is easy to also make smaller batches and experiment for fine flavors. In many cases the style of beer sought is determined by consumers, and requests can also be made by the brewery’s restaurant and retailer customers.

– For example, we produced our own IPA because it’s clearly a trendy beer style at the moment, says Kääriäinen.

Biogas does not appear to be used for beer brewing anywhere else in the world, and as far as Kääriäinen knows Bryggeri is also the first operator in Finland to use biogas this extensively.

Bryggeri products made with biogas can be spotted at retail outlets on the basis of the Biogas Label, with Bryggeri IPA the first one to be awarded the right to carry the label.