Have a beer and save the planet says Phil Mellows – even if you have to wait a little longer for it

Green beer anyone? No, not those frightful concoctions you get for St Patrick’s Day. I mean beer that’s a little kinder to the planet.

Down at the Pretty Decent Beer Company in Forest Gate, the brewery is continuing to live up to its name by reducing its impact on the environment over the past year.

Since the summer it’s been delivering canned beers by bicycle to customers around London and started collaborating with local food business Missy, which now serves drinkers at the firm’s Sheridan Road tap room, to find ways they can work together to make a difference.

It’s resulted in two ingenious brews, available soon. One is a rich Baltic Porter for Pretty Decent’s (cycle delivered) Christmas hampers brewed with leftover brown bread itself made from spent grains from the brewery.

The other is a Raspberry and Kaffir Lime Gose (a slightly sour and salty German style of beer), brewed with the zest of limes squeezed by Missy for one of its pickles.

James and Sarah Casey, who founded Pretty Decent in 2017, are already known for donating 10p to charity from every can and pint they produce, and from the start they have been especially conscious of the great volume of water that’s wasted in brewing.

They’ve always recycled it, but a brewhouse upgrade in the New Year will improve the efficiency of the process, with the aim of making 40 per cent more beer from the same amount of water.

“Since lockdown we’ve been working harder to reduce our footprint,” said James. “Thanks to the cycle courier we now guarantee zero emissions for can deliveries, and we’re exploring how we can do the same with our kegs.

“We’ve already had a good response. Customers understand what we’re doing and they’re willing to wait a bit longer for their beer.

“And we hope more people will include environmental issues in their decision-making when they buy a beer. It might be a bit more expensive but they’ll know we’re trying to do things right, and it will be a rewarding experience for them.

“Through our beers we hope, too, that people will realise everyone can perform these micro-actions. One beer isn’t going to save the planet but if you multiply that across a lot of beers, it’s going to add up.”

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