Beer byproducts tapped for brewery power (Boston)

Eric Fitch believes he’s found a way to brew success by turning the waste grain used to make beer into clean energy.

His 2-year-old startup, Purpose Energy Inc. in Arlington, Mass. is in the midst of constructing a 2 billion BTU digester adjacent to the The Magic Hat Brewing Co. in South Burlington, Vt., where it will take the remnants of the beer fermentation process and break it down into methane that can power a brewery’s boiler and other systems that traditionally run natural gas.

For Fitch, a veteran of the local startup scene, the technology is a way to help breweries increase sustainability and cheaply dispose of beer byproducts as well as help breweries become more energy independent.

“The cost for them to remediate this by-product can be about as expensive as the cost of energy itself. With an anaerobic digester they can get a two-fer, producing methane for energy and breaking down the grain,” he said.

Read the full story in Mass High Tech.