Gulpener is building the ‘most sustainable brewery in Europe’

Gulpener has started construction work on a new, ultra-sustainable brewery, which the beer company itself describes as the most sustainable in Europe. When finished, the new brewery will require 75% less energy, can operate using local ingredients only and will also be powered by 100% renewable energy.

The old brewhouse is technically outdated and Gulpener decided to set its sights high for the new building. The company wanted the new brewery for the production of craft beers to be extremely innovative and sustainable, so Gulpener’s engineers spent the whole of 2017 and 2018 working with sustainability experts and employees from brewery builder Meura.

All those efforts eventually resulted in various innovative brewing and energy-related technologies being incorporated into the new building. The facility will include the use of three completely new energy-efficient and resource-efficient brewing processes. Moreover, thanks to a highly innovative water pump that will be installed thanks to subsidy from the Netherlands Enterprise Agency (RVO), Gulpener’s new brewhouse will be completely fossil fuel-free by 2020.

Independence

Gulpener has been working with a CSR policy since the 1990s. As an independent, family-owned brewing company, it is also free to make its own decisions about all aspects of the business. For example, for the past two decades Gulpener has claimed to be the only brewer in the Netherlands using local and sustainably produced barley and hops.

The barley is grown on 450 hectares of land in Limburg by farmers that the company knows well, and the majority of the hops are produced in Limburg too. Many of the farmers grow the crops organically, and they are all PlanetProof-certified. Incidentally, in 2014 Gulpener won the MVO Nederland Award in recognition of its CSR efforts over the previous decade.