(Photo by Jake Williams)
Urbana’s Riggs Beer Company made additional progress in 2024 on its goals to operate more sustainably, according to a report from the brewery earlier this summer.
Matt Riggs, co-owner of the company, told Chambana Eats that the brewery has seen more sustainability gains in recent years for a few reasons, including the use of more local ingredients, as well as efficiencies gained from “getting reps in.”
For 2024, the company had marked reductions in the amount of water used compared to previous years, all while increasing the use of local ingredients — including Riggs family grown grain — by 40 percent.
(Riggs Beer Company)
“We have gotten better at farming brewing grains, and we’ve also gotten better at using brewing grains that have unique characteristics,” Matt Riggs told Chambana Eats this summer. “I say unique where a lot of other brewers would say challenging — it’s unique and challenging — due to our hyperlocal and really small-scale, small-batch process, that leads to a little bit more variability than we would see from commercially-sourced malt.”
In 2024, the brewery increased the amount of locally-grown wheat and barley, while keeping the amount of corn used consistent with previous years. The brewery’s use of nearly 80,000 pounds of local grain reduces the carbon footprint for transportation of those ingredients.
(Riggs Beer Company)
In addition to local grain, Riggs saw an approximate 80 percent increase in the use of hops grown in Illinois. The brewery sources hops from Hallowed Hops Farm in Lewistown, Illinois. The increase in hops usage is directly related to the release of Riggs’ “Hopilly” brand — a nonalcoholic sparkling water infused with hop oil and hops.
Despite the introduction of that new water brand, the brewery actually decreased its water usage by four percent compared to the prior year. In fact, usage is down nearly 12 percent since 2023.
The brewery only uses about three-quarters of the amount of water that a comparable brewery would use.
(Riggs Beer Company)
The 2024 reduction, Riggs said, likely comes from a change in the production planning side of the brewing process to make double batches of beer instead of singles.
“We’re able to make twice the amount of product in about 50 percent more time, so from a labor standpoint that makes sense for us, but also when it comes time to clean the tank, it’s pretty much the same amount of all of that that you can spread over twice the volume.”
Despite continued decrease in usage, Riggs said the brewery’s size will limit just how much further those reductions can go.
“At this point, we’ve pulled all the levers that we know how to pull,” Riggs said. “The thing that keeps us from being at a water usage rate of industry leading big breweries is scale. It’s really about maintenance.”
The reduction in Riggs’ water usage comes as local water use advocates celebrate additional protections for the Mahomet Aquifer, which feeds the greater Champaign-Urbana area. In August, Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed a bill to protect the aquifer from carbon sequestration, which could pose threats to the safety of drinking water in the region.
“The aquifer is an awesome resource. It delivers a very consistent, high quality stream of water to us,” Riggs said. “If I zoom out, and think from a macroeconomic standpoint, it’s such an asset for our community.”
Riggs’ focus on sustainability, paired with the resources presented by East Central Illinois, leave him “bullish on the long-term prospects for the Illinois economy.”
“This place just exudes life,” Riggs said. “I think [the aquifer] is an ace up our sleeve that we don’t fully realize how valuable it is yet, especially as the climate and things continue to kind of change and shift. I think our position here is really robust.”
Though the operation saw reductions in nearly every observable metric of use, Riggs did have a small uptick in the use of purchased electricity and consumption of gas. The electricity uptick, Riggs said, is the result of a solar inverter failure that was caught quickly and caused a slight uptick. He projects, however, that 2025 data could point to zero purchased electricity for the brewery.
Riggs said that a small increase in the usage of gas comes from the use of their boiler which is used to heat the brew kettle. To combat this increase, Riggs said they’ll be installing a new mini-split heat pump to allow them to burn less carbon and use more renewable energy. The company’s investment into solar power could result in the brewery generating more electricity than it uses, which could be funneled back into the boiler, reducing the amount of gas consumed.
For Riggs, the focus on sustainability makes it easier for the owners to know how to prioritize business decisions. The brewery has been releasing sustainability reports since 2017.
“If you’re not measuring and analyzing this data, I think you could be missing out on some clues about something that’s going wrong,” Riggs said. “I’ve always wanted this brewery to be open and transparent, I feel better doing business with people when they know a lot about what’s going on here.”
Jake Williams is a journalist, editor and publisher, as well as the CEO of the Illini Media Company.