Molson Coors was the nation’s first major brewer to convert its brewing by-products into fuel-grade ethanol. The company began recycling spent yeast and waste beer – beer lost during packaging or deemed below quality standards – and converting it to ethanol in 1996, in a facility owned by Merrick & Company and operated by then Coors Brewing Company.

Today the Golden ethanol facility produces approximately two million gallons of ethanol per year. The fuel-grade ethanol is then shipped directly to local refineries to be blended with gasoline. This process takes a former waste stream and turns it into a product that is friendlier to the environment and reduces our reliance on fossil fuels.

Rick Paine, Miller Coors brewing process leader notes that