As a brewery we consider the many environmental aspects of our brewing activities as much as possible. Local entrepreneurship is not always the easiest or cheapest solution, but we have found some beautiful and tasty products and we noticed that our customers really appreciate this.
Below we elaborate about this in some examples.

Local base malt

 

We are very pleased that we can work with a beautiful local barley malt from foundation Wageningse Korenschoof. These farmers live on the Wageningse Eng (area between Wageningen and Renkum) and in the summer and early autumn you can admire the beautiful barley fields. Malting happened a little further away, at Dingemans in Stabroek. This is the malt house closest to Wageningen that still has a small tilled so that the barley is not pooled with other parties.

Our rest products

Our largest waste flow is our spend grains, remains of the malt at the end of the day. This malt residue is fed to the pigs of the Stadsvarkens in Ede. For the pigs this is healthy and it is also a treat because they almost make fight about it!

Local deliveries

 

As a small brewery we focus on the pleasant town of Wageningen and the places just around it. We hardly go any further and we thus have little need for big transportation. For local deliveries we have developed a carrier tricycle, in cooperation with the local bicycle shop Atelier van Corven. This tough bike is sturdy enough for a large supply beer and we use every opportunity to drive this bike through our town. Also the malt residues are transported on this bike to of the (aforementioned) farm.

Local products

 

In our brewpub Café Rad van Wageningen you can find many local products. Besides our own beers also a few beers from small Dutch breweries, fine Dutch wines and spirits. The snacks on the side come there from the local eco butcher Keijzer and van Santen (try those Bitterballen), the sandwiches for our burgers are from bakery Stroop and the cheese is from Meester Affineurs. For Master Affineurs we regularly brew a real Milk Stout from the whey from his cheese.

Cooperation with educations

 

From the brewery we regularly work with local schools and university.

With the Technasium of secondary school Het Streek Ede we have investigated the possibilities to reuse spent grains. The primary school Kardinaal Alfrinkschool visited us for a project about local food producers. We regularly have collaborations with WUR.

These collaborations range from researching the possibilities of using spent grains to cultivate mushrooms and a combination of a field excursion along the fields where our barley is grown, followed by a tasting of the beers that are brewed with it and we discuss the local economy and in which aspects that provides added value.

Local entrepreneurship

We take the local entrepreneurship seriously and notice that our customers appreciate this. Using local resources is part of our story and essential for us.

 

However, our deliberate choices are not immediately visible and therefore we have to keep telling our story. We like to do that, but in order to make live a little easier for ourselves, we have devised a ‘quality mark’ which communicates which values we consider important and in which we recognize ourselves:

• Ambachtelijk (Craftsmanship):  We are a small proud brewery which brews all of its beers in our own kettles
• Oprecht (Sincere): We are honest and open about our trade and the origin of our beautiful products
• Lokaal (Local): We like to use local ingredients and work together with local businesses

Locally build Brewery

Local entrepreneurship does not stop with the use of locally sourced raw materials. In addition to Local Raw Materials, we have had our brewing installation built in the Netherlands and Belgium as much as possible.

Our brewery is built around a mash filter system. For the brewery world a relatively new technology, of a little more than a century old. The best known manufacturer is Meura from Belgium and that is where our Maisch filter comes from.

 

The Netherlands has a large industry of tank builders, for our dairy industry. Brewing kettles and fermentation tanks do not differ that much from dairy tanks, so we had our brewing kettles and fermentation tanks built in the Netherlands.

Our pumps, the brewery’s work horses, are acquired from Belgium again.

Our waste

Many small breweries use plastic kegs. These are supplied ready-to-use but can only be used once and must be disposed of with the residual waste after use. From the start, we have therefore worked with steel kegs that we clean manually.
In 2020 we were able to triple our keg pool and also purchase an automatic keg washer.

We Watch Over Our Grains