The Observer, March 18, 2005
Volume XXXVII, Issue 21
Great Lakes Brewery exemplifies potential for Cleveland business
People often decry Cleveland for its perpetual state of the blahs. It's cold, it's windy, everyone is moving away, and its residents' Midwestern sensibilities (lack of pretension) make them boring. I've never been one of the Cleveland-bashers, and in an effort to convert a few more of them I present the following profile.
A few weeks ago I dined with friends at the Great Lakes Brewing Company on the West Side; the food and drink were excellent enough to merit their own columns, but I was most excited about the Zero Waste Initiatives proposed by the local brew-pub, which is just across the street from the West Side Market.
Brewing beer from grains leaves by-products and waste; the process takes energy, as does transporting the final product to retail locations. Great Lakes has made a conscious, thorough and admirable effort to reduce their waste. Some of the grains leftover from brewing go to Zoss the Swiss Baker (five minutes from Southside, on Cedar Road) and get made into bread, pretzels, and pizza shells, which Great Lakes serves with its dinners. Other grains feed the animals on local organic farms; the meat and cheese which these farms produce find their way back to the table at the brew-pub as well. Talk about recycling.
By the time I found that even the ice cream I had for dessert had been made with beer products, I was so excited I could barely keep up with myself. Here's why: that's three times over the beer is used – as a beverage, as a food for animals and plants (organic mushrooms), and then as food for the customers at the restaurant. Regardless of whether you care about the contents of your food, such community networking is good for Northeast Ohio. And that's only the beginning.
Great Lakes boasts about the fact that recycling has cut its trash bill; if you pick up a six-pack of Dortmunder from Giant Eagle, the packaging is 55 percent post-consumer content, and the packaging for each case is unbleached cardboard, with 50 percent post-consumer content. There are skylights in the brewery; even Cleveland's bemoaned cold winter air is used to keep the preservative-free beer cool.
I asked our tour guide how all these environmentally-friendly decisions had been put into place. He told me that the Conway brothers, the Cleveland natives who founded Great Lakes in 1988, had implemented them once the company was up and running smoothly, with the help of some grants for the more expensive parts (a new fuel system that will use natural gas and biodiesel). This move came from the top down within the company, but it's a philosophy that has the potential to move up through this region.
Part of what I like about Great Lakes is that the owners grew up in Cleveland, they traveled abroad, and they brought their ideas and their energy back here instead of throwing in the towel and moving to places that have already had their renaissances. Sustainable development and environmentally-friendly entrepreneurs aren't just for California and New England anymore. And what part of this business philosophy is boring, unoriginal, and stuck in the 1970s?
Cleveland is not New York City; it never has been, and it never will be. It's not LA, Seattle, or Montreal. The "charm" it has is its own. This city has a lot of problems – with economy, public education, poverty, segregation – but it has a lot of potential. At least we can say that it isn't dead yet; at most we can say it's on an upward trajectory. I lean from the pessimistic to the optimistic, but I think I can at least use Great Lakes as proof that innovation does happen here.
