The Young Henrys Algae Project
Industry Partner
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Young Henrys
UTS Partners
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Climate Change Cluster (C3)
Project Dates
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2019–ongoing
UN SDGs
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12. Responsible Consumption and Production
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13. Climate Action
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15. Life on Land
- Posted on 14 Jan 2025
- 4-minute read
Brewing for the greater good – using beer and algae to tackle climate change.
Working with the UTS Climate Change Cluster (C3), craft brewer Young Henrys is making beer-brewing more sustainable. Having enhanced their own operations, they’re now paving the way for other brewers to follow in their footsteps.
Key takeaways
- Carbon dioxide (CO2) is a major byproduct of beer-making.
- Two algae bioreactors are on track to significantly reduce Young Henrys’ CO2 emissions – producing as much oxygen as two hectares of bushland.
- Young Henrys and C3 are also working together to enrich brewer’s spent grain with algae to make cattle feed, with the aim of reducing the methane emissions of cows.
- Young Henrys is now looking to promote these techniques to the wider industry.
Over the course of this landmark collaboration, the Algae Project has gone from an idea to vats of algae on the brewery floor to the manufacture of pellets for livestock feed.
Every step of the way, UTS researchers have helped the brewer unlock innovative algae biotechnologies and improve the sustainability of their operations.
“We were inspired by the work the C3 group were doing and wanted to get involved,” says Young Henrys co-owner, Richard Adamson. “We thought it would be worth exploring how microalgae could work in a brewing operation to lower our carbon footprint.”
First, the team used algae to process the brewery’s CO2 emissions, then they created a process for enriching spent grain with microalgae to reduce the methane emissions of cattle.
Now Young Henrys is taking what they’ve learned to help other brewers become more sustainable.
Promoting the techniques developed with the C3 team, Young Henrys has the potential to change the industry for good, reducing the carbon footprint of the entire sector.
Offsetting brewing emissions with algae bioreactors
On the Young Henrys brewery floor, alongside the stainless steel beer tanks, is another kind of vat: a green, glowing, 400-litre algal bioreactor. Two, in fact. Inside each vat is 20 trillion cells of microalgae busy absorbing CO2.
When beer ferments, it releases CO2, contributing to global warming. Feeding the CO2 through these vats stops it being released into the atmosphere, instead converting it into oxygen and a mass of microalgae.
“We capture CO2 off the top of a beer fermenter,” explains co-owner Oscar McMahon, “and we feed it through a bioreactor which houses microalgae.”
Normally it takes a tree two days to absorb the CO2 produced from brewing a six-pack. These algae are almost five times more efficient.
One bioreactor in the brewery produces the same amount of oxygen as a hectare of Australian bush. It’s amazing.
Fulfilling the ethos of “Drink beer, save the world”, the bioreactors make Young Henrys the first brewery in the world to use algae to capture CO2 emissions.
“From inception, we wanted to be an innovative showcase for sustainability in all we did,” says Adamson.
Turning brewery waste into livestock feed
After successfully using algae to reduce CO2 emissions, the partners turned their attention to another byproduct of the brewing process: spent grain.
Young Henrys was already sending its spent grain for use as farm feed. The opportunity they saw with the C3 team was to use it to reduce the cows’ methane emissions.
With support from Meat and Livestock Australia (MLA), researchers cultivated and tested the addition of different strains of microalgae to the spent grain. The result is an enriched feed supplement that the team hopes will reduce methane production in cows.
“All of a sudden, you have beer creating oxygen and lowering methane emissions,” says McMahon.
Improving the sustainability of both industries, this innovative approach is a huge step towards developing a circular bioeconomy for brewery waste, developing a cost-effective, commercialisable feed supplement in the process.
“If we can grow enough algae to feed significant numbers of animals,” says MLA’s Sustainability Innovation Manager Doug McNicholl, “we are going to make a significant impact on emissions from the livestock sector.”
Looking to the future
The collaboration with C3 has produced such promising outcomes to date that Young Henrys is now looking to scale up the process.
The intention, says Adamson, is to partner with other breweries, sharing these pioneering techniques to improve sustainability and offset emissions across the sector.
The aim is to really prove this as a system and then roll this out to other breweries across the world.
Meanwhile, the UTS partnership continues apace, with the team pursuing further feed testing and exploring ways to expand microalgae production.
There’s also a PhD student – Kira Picknell – now working on the initiative, providing a dedicated resource to the project. This emerging specialist is developing their expertise and being trained in these innovative processes as they’re being created, ensuring there’s someone skilled in these techniques into the future.
For C3, the success of the project has led to an ongoing partnership with MLA and significant research expansion into the agricultural sector, increasing the capability to collaborate with other partners in this vital industry.
Helping industry partners adopt cutting-edge algae biotechnologies
The Algae Project demonstrates how UTS can support industry partners to leverage emerging technologies to develop innovative production and manufacturing processes and solve business challenges.
“The level of public exposure to this project has been unprecedented. People having a beer on a Sunday afternoon can see the research in action in the place it’s happening,” says Dr Alex Thomson, C3’s Industry Engagement Manager.
According to C3 Executive Director Peter Ralph, the project shows how we can address the climate emergency using technology that’s readily available. “Algae offers many solutions,” he says.
By partnering with the C3 institute, Young Henrys has been able to become an industry leader in this space, using algae to tackle climate change.
I really believe the potential for algae’s use in a sustainable future is limitless.
Timeline to a carbon-neutral brewing industry
2017
Initial conversations and speculative collaborations to develop a proof of concept
2018/2019
Phase 1 – Commencement of formal projects: designing, installing and operating algae bioreactors in the Young Henrys brewery to offset carbon emissions
2021
Phase 2 – Enriching spent grain with microalgae to create a viable feed supplement that reduces the emissions of the meat and livestock industry
2024
Phase 3 – Further testing and expansion of the project to scale up production
Young Henrys
Young Henrys is an independent brewery making beer, cider and spirits in Sydney’s inner west. Embracing the ethos “Drink beer, save the world”, the brewery prides itself on being an industry leader in sustainability.