To mark Earth Day, Colorado-based brewery New Belgium Brewing created a new beer called Torched Earth Ale with intentionally awful additions to imagine the kind of ingredients that brewers may be forced to use in a dystopian future. Torched Earth Ale is a spinoff of the brewery's flagship Fat Tire (America's first certified carbon-neutral beer) and it is said to play with "some of the less-than-ideal ingredients that would be available and affordable to brewers in a climate-ravaged future without aggressive action now to confront the climate crisis."
Touted as the beer of the climate-ravaged future, Torched Earth Ale features smoke-tainted water, hardy grains like millet and buckwheat, plus shelf-stable extracts and dandelion weeds. With this beer, which isn't supposed to taste great, the brewery is calling for businesses to take action to support a brighter future with better beer in it.
Why This Trend Is Growing
- Intentionally Low-quality Beers
- Embracing the use of less-than-ideal ingredients in beers to create unique experiences and bring awareness to issues such as climate change.
- Eco-friendly Brewing
- Investing in sustainable practices and ingredients to reduce the carbon footprint of beer manufacturing and appeal to eco-conscious consumers.
- Themed Beers
- Creating beers that are aligned with specific causes or cultural events to raise awareness and engage customers in a unique way.
Industries Being Reshaped
- Brewing
- Reducing the environmental impact of beer manufacturing by investing in sustainable ingredients, eco-friendly practices and exploring the use of alternative brewing ingredients.
- Marketing and Advertising
- Developing innovative marketing strategies to engage customers with cause-related products and creating unique experiences that align with specific causes or cultural events.
- Sustainability
- Partnering with businesses and organizations that promote sustainable practices to raise awareness about the importance of taking action to address climate change and other issues.
