Since the bar’s inception, Jackie O’s Pub & Brewery, 24 W. Union St., has been working toward becoming 100 percent sustainable, and after eight years come December, it is a long way toward completing that goal.
“Our burgers are about as local and full-circle as it gets,” said Matt Spolar, creative strategist for Jackie O’s. “When you sit down to have a Jackie O’s burger, you’re eating beef that has been fed spent grain and drinking beer that was made with spent grain.”
Spent grain is a byproduct breweries accumulate from the brewing process. Spolar said it begins by making the wart—the grain added to water, which makes a tea-like substance. Once the liquid is drained and moved on to the next phase, Jackie O’s takes that spent grain and puts it to good use.
Spolar said a portion of the grain goes to the Jackie O’s kitchen, where chefs make pizza crust, burger buns and bread to sell to other local businesses. The rye bread at Union Street Diner that many might use to dip in their eggs, for example, comes from the Jackie O’s kitchen.
Another portion of the spent grain also feeds the cows that eventually make their way back to Jackie O’s in a more edible form.
However, Spolar said this isn’t necessarily new and innovative thinking, as many breweries throughout the country try to use sustainable models to put all the ingredients to good use.
“We’re ever moving toward being sustainable,” he said. “It’s a movement in the brewing industry to move toward a sustainable model that lasts. … The beauty of having a restaurant attached to one of our breweries is that we have a place to feed some of that spent grain.”
Spolar is working on a documentary that attempts to explain how all of those intricate circles work in association to build a stronger community and a sustainable business model.
But being sustainable isn’t just about buying locally and supporting the community, it’s also about building resilience, or the ability of an area to bounce back from a potential catastrophe and support itself with local agriculture and social ties.
Athens’ Own, an organization devoted to developing that resilience, has worked closely with Jackie O’s since its opening day to sell and buy products that benefit both businesses.
Constantine Faller, founder of Athens’ Own, said he is always trying to provide what he considers to be the six needs in life — food, water, shelter, air, health and education — through the efforts of Athens’ Own.
“If one of our customers is starting something new, we are there, (we are) not (thinking), ‘How can we lend you money or how can we make money off of you?’ ” Faller said.
Faller’s resilience model has spurred a fruitful working relationship between Athens’ Own and Jackie O’s in which Faller personally makes multiple trips a week to the Uptown brewery for the spent grain to feed his cattle that are later made into Athens’ Own dry-aged beef.
The beef is hung for a longer time in dry air conditions, which Faller said gives the beef a richer flavor than typical wet-aging processes.
Jackie O’s also gets ingredients from other local businesses such as Integration Acres, which provides pawpaws to brew its seasonal beer, as well as feta cheese.
“When I go out to eat lunch, I want to buy local food, and that’s why a lot of times I’ll go to Jackie O’s. … I want my money to stay in my community,” said Chris Chmiel, founder of Integration Acres and an Athens County commissioner. “These purchases reach out and touch a lot of people that you may not even realize.”
And the brewery is looking to continually expand in the coming years. Spolar said the Jackie O’s farm is looking to acquire cows and solar panels.
Pub owner Art Ostrike said it has been an expensive venture to fight for those sustainable practices, even if they might yield long-term savings. What they are trying to accomplish, he said, is bigger than financial gain.
“Well, there are always the savings and that sounds great, but you’re still putting in four or five, six, seven years before you have your ROI, (or) return on investment,” Ostrike said. “The other factor is you want to lead your friends, neighbors and family towards a better situation for generations to come.”
@Wilbur_Hoffman
wh0920100@ohiou.edu
This article appeared in print under the headline "Striving For 100% Sustainability by brewing burgers"
