7th January 2010

Top honours for Luppitt brewery

ONE of the few remaining family owned breweries in the Westcountry has won top honours at this year’s Devon Environmental Business Awards.

The Otter Brewery at Luppitt near Honiton beat off tough competition from an outdoor adventure centre, a guest house and a manufacturer of industrial piping to win the hotly contested ‘Sustainable Devon’ category at this year’s DEBI (Devon Environmental Business Initiative) Awards.

From nearly 90 overall entries, Otter were shortlisted into the final four of their category and during a glittering ceremony held at the Met Office, Patrick McCaig was presented with the award by Paul Gompertz, Director of Devon Wildlife Trust.

Well known for its environmentally friendly approach to producing beer, the Otter Brewery was established in 1990 by David and Mary Ann McCaig and is now one of the south west’s leading suppliers of cask conditioned beer.

The range of five completely natural beers is produced with an unwavering respect for the brewery’s rural location and the McCaig’s mantra has always been to brew a ‘social’ pint - not something that exacerbates the problems already linked with cheap alcohol.

As part of their entry, Otter Brewery had to prove a long term commitment to protecting and enhancing their immediate surroundings, (the Blackdown Hills are both an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and a Site of Special Scientific Interest) as well as ensuring that their long term future was wholly sustainable.

Judges were impressed at the tremendous lengths the McCaigs have already gone to (including the series of well established willow beds that help to purify waste water and the strong ethos to recycle ingredients locally) as well as the recent completion of their new underground eco cellar – the first of its kind in the country.

This alone will save the business over 6.5 tonnes of CO2 emissions per year - the equivalent of removing eight chillers and compressors (which would otherwise be running 24 hours a day, 365 days of the year).

In a very short time this will zero rate the new cellar and save the business more than £27,000 worth of electricity a year. The whole cathedral like structure has been crowned with a massive living sedum roof.

As well as absorbing CO2 from the atmosphere, the roof also captures rainwater that is then used for domestic maintenance and washing vehicles.

Sustainability plays a key role at every stage of the process, from the locally sourced malt from Tuckers Maltings in Newton Abbot to the water for the beer that is sourced from the head springs of the River Otter.

Spent malt is then used to feed a beef herd in the Luppitt Valley, waste yeast goes directly to a pig farm in nearby Stockland and the used hops make excellent mulch for organic gardeners.

All remaining brewery effluent is treated naturally using ponds and willow beds and the site is a haven for frogs, toads, newts, birdlife, deer, badgers and foxes.

As Patrick McCaig proudly comments: “This award means the world to us. For 19 years we have strived to become an exemplar for the brewing industry as a whole whilst providing everyone who drinks Otter with an honest, distinctive and long lasting memory of Devon.

“This award is a brilliant testament to what Mum and Dad have achieved since 1990 and we plan on making the business even greener in the future.”

PICTURE: David and Ann McCaig at the Otter Brewery in Luppitt