Mars brewery promotes environmental stewardship through video
MARS — At first glance, beer and the environment are an odd combination.
But for Nick Salkeld, co-owner of Stick City Brewing Company, they’re a natural pairing.
Salkeld, whose family-owned brewery is located in Mars borough, said he has always been passionate about environmental causes. The name “Stick City,” he said, came from his childhood growing up in the city of Butler and taking weekends with his family to “go out to the sticks” and spend time in nature.
“It’s more expanded to the reasons why we were going out there and the benefits that we would get (through) the connection with nature,” Salkeld said. “We realized that, as my siblings and I got older and we would be sharing beers with mom and dad, the beer was like this conduit to connecting with each other while being outside, and finding the importance in those areas. It became a very big theme with the brewery, separate from the beer that we make.”
In August, Salkeld worked with the nonprofit Pennsylvania Parks and Forests Foundation, which produced an eight-minute video highlighting the importance of clean water and healthy forests in the process of brewing craft beverages. Along with Williamsport brewer New Trail Brewing Company, Salkeld discussed how closely clean water is linked to the quality and composition of beer.
“Clean water really is everything,” Salkeld said in the video. “It’s the fundamental basis that makes up beer. So having clean water, not just because it’s going into your product, but also for the cleaning aspects and sanitation aspects and brewing, means a lot to us.”
Beer is approximately 84% water and 16% yeast, hops and grain. Different types of beer require tweaks to the composition of their ingredients, Salkeld said.
“We probably focus more on the water and the water chemistry, from a mineral load standpoint like what types of minerals, alkalinity of the water, before we even start brewing,” Salkeld said. “When we know what’s coming in and we’re trying to make a certain beer, like if it’s a dark-colored beer or a pale-colored beer, we make critiques to the water and mineral level based on those styles.”
Forests are an important component in maintaining water quality, explained Marci Mowery, president of the Pennsylvania Parks and Forests Foundation.
“One thing they do is they slow down the rain,” she said. “If you’ve ever stood underneath a tree in a gentle storm, you know you might not even be hit by the rain. When the rain does come down and hit the soil, the roots will allow the water to soak through the soil, and when water goes through the soil, it gets filtered.”
Watersheds with more forest cover tend to have better water quality, explained Teddi Stark, watershed forestry program manager with the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, in the video.
“Forests help provide a way for rainwater to recharge aquifers underground, which we use for public water resources, and for wells,” Stark said. “Forests also protect our streams. They provide shade, and shade to water is also very important because it keeps that water cool, and stream life can’t live if the water gets too hot.”
Mowery already was familiar with Stick City Brewing because of the brewery’s participation in the “1% For The Planet” program, through which Stick City donates at least 1% of gross sales directly to environmental organizations.
“It’s a commitment that we’ve made, and we’ve never given up on it. Even during the pandemic, when everything was uncertain, we still wrote that big check to these groups during that time,” Salkeld said. “It's a commitment we’re very serious about.”
Including breweries like Stick City in the video, Mowery said, was a way to make talking about forests and water relatable.
“Clean forest ecosystems create clean water, and clean water is an essential ingredient to the craft beverage industry,” she said. “We thought it was another way to tell the important way that trees play in our lives, and the role that we all have as citizens to be good stewards of places in the landscape, and being knowledgeable about what we dump into waterways and the litter that we throw around.”
The Pennsylvania Parks and Forests Foundation works on a number of different types of environmental projects, Mowery explained.
“We’re working on projects to do riparian plantings, and we are working on projects to get people outdoors,” she said. “We also advocate on behalf of these places in the landscape because we know they are so important, not just for human health, but for environmental health, and the economy of Pennsylvania.”
Salkeld said he hopes the video, along with Stick City’s other environmental efforts, will make people think more about their impact on nature.
“I think this video is a great example of getting people to think a little bit deeper, not just about the beer that they are drinking, but even just the water they drink at home,” he said. “I really hope that the takeaway is not even about the beer. It's basically asking the question, ‘When you open up the faucet in your house, where does my water come from, and what can I do and what can we do to make sure it’s the best water it can be?’”
Salkeld has also worked with the borough of Mars to discuss the public water system. Last year, the brewery hosted a community info-gathering session in conjunction with the borough and graduate students from Chatham University to discuss the Breakneck Creek watershed and future improvements.
“A lot of the water systems, people live in them and are near them, and if everyone incrementally takes a little bit of a step towards the direction of being aware of their impact, if everyone is aware and knows how they play a role in the water source, I really hope that that’s what comes from it,” Salkeld said. “Beer's kind of like the wave generating the conversation.”
