The student-run brewery at Newcastle University aims to help the north-east’s industry become a little greener

The hum of machinery and scent of hops emerges from the corner of a car park beside Newcastle University’s engineering department.

Kegs covered in yesterday’s snow are lined up outside an inconspicuous outbuilding, bearing the name “Stu Brew” – the microbrewery run by the students’ union, which is the first of its kind in Europe.

Now in its fifth year, Stu Brew has produced over 100,000 pints, designed at least 30 different beers, and has a customer list of 20 and growing. It functions as a professional business but is completely managed by students at the university, all with the aim of making the brewing industry a little more environmentally friendly.

“It focuses on making brewing more green, and getting that sustainability message out there – and you get to drink beer at the end of it,” says Red Kellie, who’s just finished brewing a sour beer.

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Kellie co-founded Stu Brew in August 2013 when she was working as the sustainability rep for the students’ union. It was one of 25 environmental initiatives in the UK to be awarded funding from the National Union of Students’ Student Green Fund.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest ‘The whole brewing process is notoriously bad for water usage, electricity usage, for chemicals.’ Photograph: Naomi Larsson

Stu Brew was given a grant of £40,000 alongside six other sustainable initiatives at Newcastle, including a new allotment and a project to reintroduce bee species in Northumberland. Out of the seven initiatives, Stu Brew is the only one still running.

The 2.5 barrel kit was installed in 2014, and the first beer brewed in November that year (in brewery speak a barrel is 140 litres, or about 246 pints). Since then Stu Brew has become intertwined with the chemical engineering department thanks to the help of Dr Chris O’Malley, who teaches at the university and is a keen home brewer himself, and is used for research projects for sustainable brewery design.

Led by a committee of 12 and with a membership of over 100 students who can help out on brew days, Stu Brew has gone from strength to strength, and the beer has got better too.

All profits go back into the business, and last summer they updated to a 6.5 barrel brewery. With the new equipment, they can produce 1,100 litres of beer at a time. There are the IPAs such as Textbook or Extended Overdraft (a stronger version of the original Overdraft), the pale ale Lab Session, the University Porter, and the coffee-infused stout 9am Lecture.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Stu Brew secretary Harry Laing. Photograph: Naomi Larsson

O’Malley, Kellie and the postgrad students who lead brews have been professionally trained. On average, Stu Brew produces about three brews a month. Brew days are typically nine-to-five working hours, and the fermentation process takes somewhere between three and five days, depending on the beer’s alcohol strength. Extra processing, like adding hops for a stronger aroma, takes more time. For students who aren’t making the beer, there’s marketing, social media and sales to take care of, as well as deliveries and cleaning the casks and kegs.

It’s hard work, but “there’s nothing more rewarding than making a beer, going to a pub and actually drinking the beer you’ve made”, says Stu Brew president Tom Nesfield. “Overhearing a passing comment on how people enjoyed that beer is a rewarding thing in itself.”

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“When I go out now I look for something to enjoy the taste,” says Harry Laing, Stu Brew secretary, who’s doing a postgrad in chemical engineering. “That excessive drinking cliche that comes with being a student, I like to think Stu Brew puts people off that, and gets them more interested in where it comes from and how it’s made.”

There’s no doubt a huge part of Stu Brew’s appeal is enjoying a delicious pint at the end of it, but at the heart of the project is sustainability, and finding ways to reduce the negative environmental impact of brewing.

“It’s trying to get students to think about sustainability issues in a different way. It’s less about practical conservation, but about how you build sustainability into industry,” says Kellie.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Many breweries throw recyclable kegs straight into landfill. Photograph: Naomi Larsson

“The whole brewing process is notoriously bad for water usage, electricity usage, for chemicals, so we’re looking at how that whole process can be made more sustainable.”

To reduce food miles, the malt comes from the closest place they could source it, about 100 miles down the road in Castleford. The brewers tried their hand at growing their own hops but, according to Laing, “the Newcastle sun is not quite as intense as they’d [the hops] like it to be.”

The spent grain and hops are collected by a local farmer who uses it as cattle feed, and the team drives an electric van for deliveries. They’ve moved from bottled beers to cans, which are more easily recyclable. They’ve also installed a live monitoring system to help reduce water and energy usage, and will try to brew on consecutive days when possible, to save energy by using the water recirculation system.

“Stu Brew isn’t just working in a bubble,” Laing says. “It’s trying to work with the sector and have a community impact. Research and sharing knowledge is the biggest driver for what we do. It isn’t necessarily for our own gain, it’s to promote and improve the sector as a whole in the north-east.”

As part of his research, Laing looked into how microbreweries can improve cleaning techniques by using fewer chemicals, and therefore reduce costs and chemical discharge. Nesfield, a third-year chemical engineering student, has studied the impact of single-use plastic kegs. Though they’re recyclable, about 50% of breweries he surveyed were putting them straight into landfill.

With some Stu Brew alumni now working in the industry, the team hope they can spread these ideas about sustainability to the rest of the beer world. “We are trying to make this as good as it can be, and we’re looking to the future for how brewing can be less environmentally harmful,” says Kellie.