While Food Canada allows over 100 ingredients in beer, Steam Whistle uses only four, all natural ingredients (pure spring water, malted barley, hops and yeast), all GMO-free. Although not required on alcohol packaging, Steam Whistle lists our ingredients on our bottles & cans because we believe the consumer deserves to be informed.
Since the first batch of Steam Whistle Pilsner rolled off the line in March, 2000 we have been proudly using our unique green glass bottle which is made with 30% more glass. This means the same bottle can potentially be washed, inspected and refilled up to 35 times – about twice as many as the industry standard brown bottle. Our painted logo not only saves trees from becoming label paper, but also eliminates glue and dyes from contaminating the water drained from our bottle washer.
The Good Beer Folks are proud of the fact that every element from our packaging line is recycled: cardboard cartons, broken glass, old bottle caps and even shrink wrap are compacted in the bottle shop to be recycled into new packaging materials. We also have the 'spent grain' from our brewhouse shipped to farmers to be used for animal feed.
Steam Whistle was the first brewery in Canada to use a completely Biodegradable Cup for outdoor events. These cups are made of a cornstarch resin that is 100% compostable within 50 days, which vastly reduces the plastic waste left behind by partiers everywhere.
Steam Whistle Brewing made the conscious choice in 2007 to support our friends at Bullfrog Power and help save our planet. Our Brewery uses clean, renewable power for its electricity, sourcing power from wind and low-impact hydro generators that meet or exceed the federal government's Environmental choice Program EcoLogo standard for renewable electricity.
Canada Clean Fuels has been supplying Steam Whistle's truck fleet with B20 Bio Fuel since late 2006 – just another way Steam Whistle Brewing helps ease the stress on our planet. This bio fuel, containing soya fuel and recycled restaurant grease, powers the trucks hauling our brew ensuring our green-packaged Premium Pilsner is also green-conscious.
Since the year 2000, Steam Whistle Brewing has opted to use Enwave's Deep Lake Water Cooling for climate control in our building instead of conventional air conditioners that rely on harmful CFC refrigerants and eat up valuable energy. The icy cold water drawn through intake pipes deep in Lake Ontario help provide a comfortable working environment for our staff each summer.
Click here to learn more about Enwave's Deep Lake Water Cooling
Steam is the most efficient form of heat and is the exclusive resource used by Steam Whistle to heat water for brewing, bottle washing and even climate control of our brewery. Instead of having our own boiler on site, we source steam from Enwave's efficient central District Steam Plant. This same steam is used to sound off our operational steam whistle every hour from 9am to 5pm.
Click here to learn more about Enwave's District Steam Heating
In the winter of 2008, Steam Whistle Brewing installed a new state-of-the-art Brewhouse to craft our Premium Pilsner. This new, efficient Brewhouse reduces our waste water output down to 1/3 of the older Brewhouse, a considerable savings to the environment! The same new technology also reduces the energy needed to brew by recirculating steam-heated water back into the cycle. It's these kind of energy savings that Steam Whistle is mindful of. We will strive to continually improve by sourcing new energy-efficient technology in our production facilities.
A voluntary audit with www.GreenTBiz.org, partly funded by the Ministry of Energy, enlightened Steam Whistle about some energy saving options for our facility's lighting. Rather than do a wholesale changeover which would result in older fixtures and bulbs going into a landfill, Steam Whistle has taken a more conservative approach, this year adopting energy-efficient fixtures and bulbs as old fixtures burn out or as we expand our facilities. We've become more conscious of leaving electrical lights off and taking advantage of the natural sunlight flowing into our building, and we've added motion detectors to cut down on power usage.
The brewery's on-site event space hosts several hundred parties annually and we've recently begun sending leftover edibles to either a local street mission or a women's shelter to reduce waste generated on site.
Learn more about these organizations here: Yonge Street Mission and The Redwood.
Steam Whistle Brewing is a proud participating supporter of these green organizations:
