Green beer is not reserved for St. Patrick’s Day – especially in Durango, Colorado.

One hundred percent of the craft beer produced by Durango’s four award-winning craft breweries – Carver Brewing Co., Durango Brewing Co., Ska Brewing Co., and Steamworks Brewing Co. – is now “Green.” Or more accurately, now being brewed using 100 percent “Green Power” – electricity generated from a renewable resource.

La Plata Electric Association (LPEA), the rural electric cooperative that supplies power to Durango, offers businesses and individuals opportunity to purchase Green Power at a premium of $1.25 per 100 kilowatt-hour block. Currently, the majority of the Green Power available through LPEA’s power supplier Tri-State Generation & Transmission is the renewable resource of wind power. All four breweries are taking a leadership role in the Green Power effort, banding together as the loosely-based consortium of “The Bootlegger’s Society,” to purchase enough Green Power at a premium to cover all of their electricity consumption.

“I think it’s probably safe to say we’re the only community in the country where all the craft brewers are brewing with ‘wind.’ Among the four of us, we brew about 15,000 barrels of beer per year,” said Brian McEachron, Steamworks director of marketing and sales, noting that Steamworks operates two brewpubs (restaurant and brewery combined) in both Durango and nearby Bayfield. “Utilizing electricity from a renewable resource such as wind is just the ‘right’ thing to do.”

The Bootleggers have been leaders in environmental responsibility within the manufacturing/restaurant community of Durango for many years. In addition to traditional efforts such as recycling, the breweries donate nutrient-rich spent grain (grain used in the brewing process) to local ranchers for cattle feed and have replaced petroleum-based plastic beer cups with those made from compostable corn.

“We are continually looking at ways to leave a smaller carbon footprint, and lead by example in the community,” said Dave Thibodeau, co-founder of Durango’s largest craft brewery, Ska Brewing. Ska recently broke ground on a new 20,000 barrel capacity brewery that is being designed to LEED (Leadership in Environmental Engineering and Design) or “green” standards, and is expected to be a model for microbreweries when opened in 2008.

Steamworks and Carver’s have also met with officials from La Plata Electric to improve energy efficiencies at their operations.

“Even though we’re purchasing Green Power, we don’t want to waste it,” said Mike Hurst, co-owner of Carver’s. “Every effort helps, and we want to demonstrate that it can actually be beneficial and cost effective for businesses to ‘go green.’”

To reward other businesses who are making a similar commitment and purchasing Green Power, The Bootlegger’s, in conjunction with LPEA, are planning a special “wind” party at the end of the summer tourism season. Only those purchasing Green Power will receive that very special invitation.

“It’s not a lot of hot air,” said McEachron.

To learn more about Green Power purchase, visit LPEA on the web, www.lpea.coop, or call 970.247.5786.