The Rupture in the Brewhouse
Feb-05-2026
The Greengrocer’s Pint: Why Craft Brewers are Tearing Down the “Sign in the Window”
At Davos this January, Mark Carney, Prime Minister of Canada, delivered what amounted to a eulogy for the “rules‑based international order.” He invoked Václav Havel’s famous metaphor of the greengrocer who displays a political slogan in his window—not out of conviction, but because the system demands compliance to maintain a “pleasant fiction”.
In today’s global beverage industry, that sign in the window is the ubiquitous “Sustainability Commitment.”
Many CPGs continue to pledge net zero by 2050 while sourcing from supply chains still rooted in the lowest-cost, highest-extraction agricultural systems. The ritual persists, the soil degrades, and the fiction holds. But at the Colorado Craft Brewers Summit, something different happened. The shopkeepers stopped performing.
Naming the Reality
When Walker Modic, Environmental Program Director, New Belgium Brewing and Todd Olander, Founder of Root Shoot Malting, presented the results of the Climate Smart Barley Project, they weren’t unveiling a pilot—they were “naming the reality” Carney described.
While many actors continue to operate with industrial systems that treat carbon as an externality, Root Shoot Malting and New Belgium Brewing demonstrated that another order is not only possible, but measurable. Using Downforce’s methodology for measuring and reporting on carbon removals, Olander Farms sequestered 4,322 tons of CO₂e—roughly equivalent to the annual steam energy emissions of an 800,000-barrel brewery.
This isn’t a “sign in the window”. This is a rupture.
Craft Brewers Claiming Their Seat
Carney’s warning to Middle Powers was blunt: “If you are not at the table, you are on the menu.” In today’s malt market, the structure of large-scale supply chains often leaves craft brewers operating as price-takers, with limited influence over the grain varieties major maltsters make available.
Colorado’s brewers are exploring a new path. As they begin to act collectively, they echo the spirit of the ‘Middle Power Alliance’ Carney described – shifting, even if gradually, from a position of simply accepting what’s offered toward one where they can ask for verifiable, climate-smart assets.
The pilot has delivered the proof. The data is real. The opportunity is now.
The Choice Ahead
The Climate Smart Barley Project has highlighted what is possible when brewers and malthouses collaborate with producers. By insisting on measurable climate performance, instead of avoiding the difficult truths, the industry can help to build a resilient and reliable future, from the ground up.
The question for the industry is simple: Do we keep the sign in the window—or do we follow the truth into the field?
Learn more about our approach for measuring and reporting on carbon removals here: info@downforce.tech
