Beer/Cow Fart City, USA

Yeasty the cow

I don't even live there yet, but every day I fall more and more in love with Asheville.

Yeast + stuff = beer

Where else but Beer City, USA would a former biochemist be inspired to make brownies with spent brewer's yeast?

Here's the gist. No matter how eco-friendly they intend to be, locally breweries ultimately create waste. In fact, Highland Brewing Co. already creates 200 tons of spent yeast per year, but when New Belgium's brewery is up and running, it will add 2,000 annually, according to the citizen-times.

You can't just dump all that yeast down the drain. And if you feed it to cows - like you can with brewer's grain - well, you could blow up the world.

Yeast + cows = gas

As the aforementioned biochemist, Robert "Rusty" Bryant say, "Yeast is 80 percent alive and creates gas in cows."

Can't have that. Seriously.

Then comes one of the best statements I've read in print for quite some time:

"An environmentally friendly brewery trying to dispose of its byproducts isn't interested in having cows rip a hole in the ozone layer with methane emissions as a result."

Can you believe that? God, I love Asheville. I'm reading online, but that's the local newspaper talking about cow farts ripping holes in the ozone layers y'all!

I can't wait to get to Asheville.

Seriously.