This Arizona beer has a social conscience

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This Arizona beer has a social conscience

Drink beer, save water. It sounds like an excuse to day-drink, but if you've followed The Republic's coverage of the Verde River and a company called Sinagua Malt (not to mention our editorial page's foray into beer brewing ), you know that green beer is more than just the cheap stuff served up on St. Patrick's Day.

A group of Arizona breweries, working with farmers in the Verde Valley, are stirring up vats of beer using sustainable ingredients. The malt that goes into the beer, notably, is part of an effort to reduce the amount of water diverted from the Verde River.

So it was that we sent intrepid reporter Jack Armstrong and photojournalist Vanessa Abbitt to Sedona for a field trip to Sedona Beer Co . Jack also visited Arizona Wilderness Brewing Co ., whose owner has built a whole sustainable cycle into his menu. You can read the story here , but in the meantime, Jack and Vanessa take you behind the scenes at the brewery.

How Sedona Beer Co. is brewing sustainable ale

ON BREW DAY , head brewer Tim Daglow leads me and photographer Vanessa Abbitt into a steamy hot room where supersized vats turn a pink potion into Sedona Sunrise, one of Sedona Beer Company’s best-sellers.Daglow’s personal favorite beer, the brew is made with blue corn and Sinagua Malt. The corn gives it its color and the malt gives it a social conscience.

“It's pretty unique for us to be able to source from…as sustainable a company as possible,” Daglow said.

Sedona Beer Co. is one of several Arizona breweries that use Sinagua Malt , made by a local company that helps farmers switch from water-intensive crops like alfalfa, cotton and corn to crops that require less water, like malting barley. Farming these crops diverts less irrigation water from rivers (like the Verde) during the summer. The idea is that brewing with Sinagua Malt saves water and keeps business local.

The next stop is a nearby storage shed where the grain is kept. Labels from retired brews cover the wall next to a walk-in fridge full of kegs. Sacks of hops and Sinagua Malt sit on a shelf. Sedona Beer plans on phasing out all other malt providers and brewing exclusively with Sinagua products, Daglow says.

“It's not very typical for beer-grade barley to be grown in this area, in the Southwest at all,” he says. “To have a malting company that's attached to that is a really unique opportunity for us to take advantage of keeping our circle tight, keeping the stuff that we produce using as many local ingredients as possible.”

He invites me to taste the malt. It’s a bit like a sunflower seed, dry and a little sweet. That grain is grown by farmers around the Verde Valley, malted and distributed to breweries around the state.

Outside the storage shed, trash cans full of the grain byproduct from the malting process line the walkway. I’m not invited to taste it, and I don’t mind. The sticky, mealy grain, warm from sitting in the hot sun all day, will become dinner for a small herd of cows right next to the family farm that grows the barley for Sinagua. Sedona Beer gives them to a local cattle rancher for free.

Daglow is Sedona Beer’s head brewer. He’s also the only brewer. He spends brew days in the hot brewhouse, steeping hops, cleaning mashtuns and working on new recipes in the “lab-vatory,” a workspace in the staff bathroom where he experiments with beer in various stages of fermentation. He’s been with Sedona Beer for four years. The job is “pretty dope,” he says.

“Is this your dream job?” Vanessa asks.

“Sometimes yeah, sometimes no,” Daglow says. “When I’m covered in yeast and things start exploding it’s not necessarily the dream, but that doesn’t happen very often.” — Jack Armstrong and Vanessa Abbitt

Green beer that isn't green: Drink beer, save water: Inside Arizona breweries' 'soil to soil' collab with local farmers

Habitat upgrade for native Sonora chub?

The U.S Fish and Wildlife Service has agreed to consider a petition to add critical habitat in southern Arizona for the native Sonora chub .

The process could take a while — the next full review isn't due until 2027 — but if the agency approves the proposal, California Gulch in Santa Cruz County would be added to habitat considered critical to the recovery of the threatened fish.

The existing critical habitat for the chub was established in 1986 when the fish was listed as threatened. That habitat includes Sycamore Creek and Peñasco Creek in Santa Cruz County, an area the agency said encompassed the entire area where the fish was then known to live.

Biologists determined California Gulch may now qualify as critical habitat.

The Sonora chub is a desert fish, part of the minnow family, and is found in some intermittent streams in southeast Arizona and in perennial streams in Sonora, Mexico, according to the wildlife service. Not much is known about the chub's preference for habitat or even its behavior. It's threatened by other fish and parasites, as well as mining work.

Arizona is home to 35 native fish species, of which 21 are listed as endangered or threatened or as candidates for protection. Non-native fish have taken over many waterways and reservoirs around the state.

Native species: How an Arizona tribe and wildlife biologists rescued the Apache trout from near extinction

Release the mountain lion

Finally this week, a mountain lion that wandered onto the campus of the Tucson Medical Center Friday has been released back into the wild, with a souvenir of his trip to town.

The big cat showed up at the medical center Friday morning (presumably without an appointment) and got himself trapped in a courtyard. Game and Fish officers were summoned and, with the help of Tucson Police, darted and tranquilized the young male lion.

Once at the agency's regional offices, the cat was given a clean bill of health and, because he had no prior record of poor behavior, officers outfitted him with a GPS radio collar and released him Saturday some distance away from the city, free to roam once more.

If perchance you meet: Mountain lion encounters are rare, but if you encounter one, here are 5 ways to stay safe

We ain't lyin', that's it for this week. Thanks for reading and for subscribing to AZ Climate, the Arizona Republic's weekly environment newsletter. We hope you'll consider forwarding it to others who may like it. If someone sent this to you, sign up to get it every week .

Environmental coverage in The Republic and on azcentral is supported by the Nina Mason Pulliam Charitable Trust . You can show your own support for environmental journalism in Arizona by subscribing to azcentral .

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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: This Arizona beer has a social conscience