Alchemist beer company1/6/2024 On our last report for Stowe, we were putting out. I just had a conversation with Steve Miller, our wastewater manager. But until we got to 11.1, we had to eat that cost. We were paying something like $1,600 or $1,800 per pump and were doing that four or five times per week. So for 10 to 12 weeks, we had to pay a local waste company to come pump our tank out front. Like anything that relies on natural organisms, it takes time to build up a culture in our waste treatment facility. Our permit didn’t allow us to put a drop of waste into the town system until we could prove it was less than 11.1 pounds per day. It was a challenge, but we were up for it. So we said, “Okay, fine.” We knew what our pilot test batch numbers were. A delay of even a month has a huge impact on a project of this size. We certainly couldn’t fight that number because it would add to our construction timeline. But somewhere along the way, someone got it in their brain that we should be set at 11.1 pounds of biological oxygen demand per day. We gave the town our numbers for the permit we had in Waterbury we assumed we’d get a similar direct discharge permit here, because we’re producing the same amount of beer. Through the results we got, it was encouraging enough that it was worthy of the investment to put in a larger facility in Stowe. When we started planning the Stowe location, we said, “We’re going to clean that up even more before we put it down the drain.” We began working with a local engineer and ran a pilot program in the front yard in Waterbury. That’s when we started to look at options for putting in our own wastewater facility. We weren’t required to do that, but we saw our impact and wanted to reduce it. So we built our own wastewater treatment facility. We saw what we were producing and also what we were paying to take care of what we were producing. That was something that became very clear in running a pub and then in running a production facility. John Kimmich: When we built the building, our focus was on efficiency, less energy use, less energy waste. KG: How has that focus played into your new facility in Stowe? You start to realize that everything you do has an impact on the environment and on other people. It tends not to happen so much when you’re young, but as your brain grows, you start to think about something other than yourself. The older you get and the more you learn, the more you think about stuff like that. When we met, we were both very much outdoor-oriented people. That’s like asking why anyone does anything. You could say it’s our upbringing, or maybe it’s from other factors that happened to us in our lives. John Kimmich: It’s just what Jen and I prioritize as business owners. KG: Where do you think that drive toward sustainability comes from?
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