Kona Brewing Company / Aging in 22-ounce bottles at the Kona Brewing Company is a very green beer. And come the day after St. Patrick’s Day, it’ll still be that way. The Hawaii Organic Farmer’s Association has certified Oceanic Organic Saison, a Belgian-style wheat ale, as the state’s first organic beer. The first batch went on tap at the company’s pubs at Koko Marina and in Kailua-Kona on Hawaii Island in January; bottles will be opened at the two pubs and selected restaurants early this spring.

The organic beer is only one part of a concerted effort to turn Hawaii’s largest brewing company into one of the nation’s greenest. The company’s Kailua-Kona brewery and pub are installing solar panels that, when turned on this April, will generate 60 percent of the operation’s power needs. The Green Restaurant Association recently declared the two pubs to be “Certified Green”: They’re the only two eating establishments in the state to claim that honor.

To earn it, KBC extended its greening efforts into virtually every aspect of its business. Dishwashing liquids were replaced by dishwashing solids– cakes of non-toxic cleaner that save on shipping and packaging costs. The menus feature locally grown beef, locally caught fish and locally and organically grown produce whenever possible. The plastic cups are made from soy. The bartenders can give customers a draw not only of Oceanic Organic, but of Kona-coffee-laced Pipeline Lager, or of an alcoholic ginger beer brewed with Maui-grown sugar and local ginger.

Even the décor is at least partially recycled. Some tables at the Kailua-Kona pub started their existences as cable spools at Oceanic Time Warner; a stove hood is a recycled section of an old fermenting tank. Driftwood has been incorporated into tables, trim and framing.

“Being a little creative, recycling [and] reusing cuts back on waste and it gives things more than one life–and as a kind of a side benefit it adds a little bit of color and character,” says KBC Sustainability Coordinator Tracy Solomon.

The company doesn’t even waste its waste.

“Right now, we’re working with three different farmers who are feeding just off of our by-products,” says Hawaii Organic Farmer Association Certification Coordinator Sarah Townsend.

Local cows, pigs and chickens are dining on the pub’s kitchen scraps and on the brewery’s spent grain. Spent yeast, Solomon notes, “is going toward composting and fertilizing instead of going down the drain, so it takes a huge burden off the wastewater treatment plant.”

The farmers get free fertilizer, the wastewater plant gets less waste, and the company saves on its water bill; everyone wins.

“Reducing our environmental impact has become one of our primary missions,” Kona Brewing CEO Mattson Davis said in a statement about the new organic beer. “We have improved our efficiencies here in Hawaii and beyond in order to minimize our carbon footprint. It’s better for our guests, better for our business–and most of all, better for our planet.”

That triple bonus–good for customers, good for the company, good for the environment–is also at work in the company’s new solar array. Over the next 30 years, it expects the photovoltaic system to prevent the burning of 16,425 barrels of oil at local power plants, which would have released approximately 7,730 tons of carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere annually. And Kona Brewing will shave about $100,000 annually off its electric bill.

Where’s the wheat?

One big piece is still missing from the company’s drive toward true sustainability. Solomon knows of no wheat or hops being grown in Hawaii.

It’s technically possible to grow grain here. Seed corn, for instance, is now one of the state’s most lucrative crops, though most of the profits are going to out-of-state companies. At least one local farm is growing commercial sweet corn on the North Hilo/Hamakua Coast. The Big Island is home to a wide array of climates, including some areas that could support wheat and barley. But land prices and economies of scale work against such crops, which require a lot of land.

“Land is expensive here in Hawaii,” notes Townsend, who worked with KBC on certifying its organic beer. In this economy, she says, “it’s more rewarding to grow houses than to grow food.”

One way to narrow that profitability gap is to grow organic crops, which sell for more than commodity grains. And while economies of scale work against grains, Townsend thinks hops could be a money-maker here.

“I think if someone could manage to grow good quality, organic Hawaiian hops, they could sell all that they grew,” she says. It would have to be a farmer at higher altitudes, though–Kula on Maui, say, or Waimea or Volcano on Hawaii Island–because hops require periods of cool weather to ripen.

Right now, says Solomon, the only hops growing in Hawaii that she knows of are some “pet hops” in old whiskey barrels at her company’s Kona pub, and “they haven’t done too well.” If someone on the island is interested in grain or hops, she says, she’d love to talk with them.

The cost of bringing in its ingredients makes KBC’s beers about 50 percent more expensive to brew than mainland beers. But that doesn’t seem to have hurt Kona Brewing’s bottom line. Despite the poor economy, the company posted a 50 percent growth rate in 2009, and expects a 30 percent growth this year. By bringing in its raw materials and processing them “closest to market,” the company claims, it’s “reducing its carbon footprint.”

That logic, of course, hasn’t prevented Kona Brewing from exporting its beers to 28 other states and Japan. Still, Townsend says that Kona Brewing’s commitment to sustainability is more than just hype.

“I think they’re doing it for the right reasons,” she says. “It’s not just for PR. These people really want to be green.”

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