When you make beer, you naturally create CO₂.
It’s part of fermentation — yeast does its thing, beer gets made, and carbon dioxide is released. Traditionally, that CO₂ just goes into the air, and breweries bring in separate CO₂ deliveries to carbonate beer and keep things running.
We decided to do something a little different.
CAPTURING WHAT WE ALREADY MAKE
At our brewery in Blanco, we’ve installed a CO₂ capture system that allows us to collect the carbon dioxide created during fermentation, clean it, and reuse it in our brewing process.
In simple terms:
we’re capturing our own CO₂ instead of letting it go to waste.
That recovered CO₂ is then used to carbonate beer and support production — the same way delivered CO₂ would be, just with a much smaller footprint.
WHY IT MATTERS
Reusing our own CO₂ helps reduce greenhouse gas emissions and lowers our reliance on outside deliveries. It also makes our brewery more resilient by insulating us from CO₂ supply shortages and rising costs — something the brewing industry has felt in recent years.
Most importantly, it aligns with how we’ve always approached brewing: doing things thoughtfully, responsibly, and with care for the place we call home.
QUALITY STILL COMES FIRST
Before any recovered CO₂ is used, it’s fully purified and tested to meet beverage-grade standards. Our team also evaluates it the same way we do everything else — if it doesn’t meet our standards, it doesn’t go into our beer.
The result? The same Real Ale quality you expect, with a smarter use of resources behind the scenes.
A STEP FORWARD
We partnered with Chart Industries’ Earthly Labs team to install the CO₂ capture system at our Blanco brewery — technology designed specifically to make small-scale carbon capture accessible for craft breweries.
As we head into our 30th year of brewing in the Texas Hill Country, this is one more step in our ongoing commitment to quality, innovation, and responsible brewing.
Same beer.
Smarter process.