How Busselton’s Rocky Ridge Brewing Co is blazing a trail in certified sustainable craft beer production

It’s a big claim, but the team at Rocky Ridge Brewing Co in WA’s South West reckon they are “solving the world’s problems one beer at a time”. Speaking at the Grains Industry of WA barley forum in Perth on July 29, Rocky Ridge co-founder Hamish Coates told growers about his decision to go down the path of producing certified sustainable craft beer. He said from the beginning Rocky Ridge aspired to make the best brews possible using local produce, while aiming to become a carbon neutral and, eventually, a net zero company. But the brewery, based at Jindong west of Busselton, could never achieve this without developing strong supply chain relationships. “We are on a drive to achieve net-zero production by 2050 but this can’t be achieved without our supply chain also being on board,” Mr Coates said. “We can control some emissions but others we can’t, which is why relationships within our supply chain are so important.” For the third season in a row Rocky Ridge had partnered with Kulin barley growers Tolga Farm, which enables the brewery to source malt barley that has a carbon footprint 80 per cent lower than traditional malt barley. Tolga Farm is certified by environmental quality program Certified Sustainable, which provides independent validation of environmental, social and good governance outcomes. Founded in 2014, Certified Sustainable’s certification process requires farmers to provide evidence of at least 10 practices which improve soil stability, water cycles, climate and sustainability outcomes. Tolga Farms uses and records data on practices such as minimum tillage, reduced synthetic inputs, maintaining ground cover, crop rotation, increased soil biology, cover cropping, responsible resource use, rotational grazing, corridor vegetation enhancement and community engagement to achieve its certification. Rocky Ridge currently uses 320 tonnes of barley in its operation per year. Mr Coates said partnering with a local company such as Tolga Farm — which was doing the hard work of actively monitoring and reducing emissions within their cropping business — was key to producing truly sustainable beer. He said Rocky Ridge saw their customers as “family” and wanted to produce an ever expanding range of great craft brews with the least environmental impact. “Being able to articulate what we are doing in regards to the provenance of our beer and its sustainability credentials is incredibly hard due to the average three-second attention span of consumers and the likes of TikTok,” Mr Coates said. Sustainably produced beer is a growing trend globally. Despite difficulties getting their message across a range of media platforms, Mr Coates said customer feedback pointed to sustainability of production being increasingly important. “Having certified sustainability claims within our industry’s supply chain makes sense and partnering with sustainable suppliers won’t blow costs out of the water for brewers,” he said. “Measuring and reducing emissions won’t do us any harm.” He said the hardest part was the logistics of bringing all the sustainability claims together. Meanwhile, Rocky Ridge has made its own sustainability commitment, with investments in off-grid solar and battery power, waste-water recycling, a CO2 reclaim plant and Biodigester. When asked whether brewers would be prepared to pay a premium for certified sustainable malt barley, Mr Coates said a 15-20c/kg premium would not break the budget. “I believe this premium does need to get back to our farmers though,” he said. “We are brewing one and a half million litres of beer annually; for us that does not require a lot of grain as an industry standard. “We are trying to be part of the solution but we understand we are not a large volume grain buyer. “We are solving the world’s problems one beer at a time.”