Jim Belles surveys the brewery garden, walking a groomed pathway. The sun is still groggy, rising slowly. Jim pivots left, takes a few steps into a row and crouches down. He pops up and holds out a gift. “Give this a try,” he says. It’s an alpine strawberry. A tiny thing—the size of a fingernail—with a curious off-white color. By looks alone, it doesn’t seem that promising. But why would...
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If you've stopped by the Chico Taproom and Restaurant in recent weeks, you might have noticed that things look a bit different, at least on the outside.Looking sharp, front yard!We gave our pub landscaping a dapper makeover, but it's more than skin deep. With drought-tolerant plants, rock features and decomposed granite and slate, the change also allows us to use less water.California has been our home since we sold our...
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HOT. ROT. Sounds sexy, doesn't it? No? Well, how about 99.8% of trash diverted from landfill and heaps of it being composted and put to good use? We just celebrated the four-year milestone of super-composting in Chico with our HotRot system. We say "super-composting" because what can take Mother Nature nine months to break down, that baby can plow through in a mere 10 days.Our founder Ken Grossman certainly doesn't...
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There's a lot to celebrate today: the brewery blows out 33 candles, it's America Recycles Day and we're honored to be the first business certified platinum by the U.S. Zero Waste Business Council (USZWBC), underscoring our effort to divert as much of our solid waste as possible from landfills and incinerators—in 2012, we hit 99.8 percent!—although waste is just one of many criterion. The USZWBC critiqued everything from our purchasing...
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Visit our Facebook page to see all of our Mills River construction photos. Despite the dark days of winter, solar energy is atop our minds at the Mills River brewery. Recently, we finished the installation of our parking lot solar array, which will help offset the energy requirements of running the brewery.This parking lot array is made up of nine units—umbrella-like canopies each with 22 individual panels— that will generate 60...
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Visit our Facebook page to see all of our Mills River construction photos. The sun is shining down on Mills River this week, and we've hit another milestone. We're flipping the switch on our rooftop solar array for the first time. We bemoaned the rainy weather in North Carolina this spring, but now that autumn is upon us, the sun is out and it's the perfect time to commission our new...
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A cheetah is in our garden wielding a hacksaw.Ok, it's not a spotted feline; we're talking about Cheetah, our gardener. (He does have a long, lion-like mane of hair, so that counts for something, right?) Inspired by a progressive Maine-based farmer, Cheetah spent the last couple of months spearheading the design and construction of a 12-foot-wide by 65-foot-long mobile greenhouse for our two-acre garden.Together with our agriculture team, Cheetah cut...
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