Blog > Sage Brews- A Female Owned Organic Brewery
In the heart of Ventura County, Kim Rice, a lady brewmaster, has been hard at work turning seasonal organic produce and local organic hops into unique beer and kombucha flavors – including Boozy Booch. Not often thought of as an agricultural product, Sage Brews is dedicated to using organic and local ingredients and practicing regenerative farming to produce some truly impressive results. In this episode, Paul discovers more about regenerative farming, wet hops, and the exciting future in store for Sage Brews. Discover Kim’s journey to brewmaster, how kombucha is different from beer, and how to turn strawberries into a best-selling blond beer.
Watch the full episode complete with charts and guides on Paul’s YouTube channel.
What you’ll learn in this week’s episode:
0:00 Introducing lady brewmaster, Kim Rice, from Sage Brews.
2:00 Making organic beer with ingredients sourced in southern California,
3:11 Sage Brews is one of few breweries growing their own hops.
4:30 What are WET hops and why are they important?
5:56 The specialness and vibrancy of once-a-year wet hop brewed beer.
6:38 A third of Sage Brews production is fresh kombucha made with local ingredients.
7:35 What differentiates kombucha from beer?
9:25 Seasonal produce determines available beer and kombucha flavors.
9:43 How Sage Brews incorporates regenerative farming practices in their hop yard.
11:39 The origin of Kiss The Ground beer.
13:33 Life as a lady brewmaster in a traditionally male dominated industry.
14:43 The exciting future of Sage Brews (hint: Texas & Los Angeles).
17:17 How people can enjoy beverages produced by Sage Brews.
18:16 Kim Rice’s journey to brewmaster.
20:59 Sage Brews is an award winning brewery!
21:36 Which inventive flavors are people drawn to?
23:28 Turning strawberries into an ale.
26:00 Paul’s Garden of Eden is a compost bin.
26:47 Turning restaurant food waste and spent grain from the brewery into a regenerative cycle.
Related Episodes:
Organic & Sustainable Hop Farming in Fillmore, CA with Mollie Engelhart
Brian Oliver – Poseidon Brewing Company’s Co-Proprietor and Head Brewer
Hilary Boynton – Founder of School of Lunch
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Paul Ward (00:01):
In this episode, we’re gonna learn what it takes to own and operate an organic woman-owned brewery. Hi, it’s Paul Ward and welcome friends to Farm Talk. I’m very excited. Today we are in Fillmore, California and we’re talking to Kim Rice with Sage Brew. Kim, welcome to Farm Talk.
Kim Rice (00:20):
Thank you for having me.
Paul Ward (00:22):
Absolutely. We are in the heart of Ventura County, and we’ve got a working hops yard behind us, and you can probably hear some roosters and chickens off in the distance. I’m sure they’re gonna be squawking the entire time that we’re talking, but it is a working farm. So, Kim wanted to talk to you for several reasons today. You are a lady brew master. You make organic beer, it’s regenerative, and you’re branching out into new markets. So you’ve got a lot going on. How did you become a, a brew master?
Kim Rice (00:58):
I was working in film for 10 plus years in LA and then on a hiatus once I had worked at Sage, which is a small chain of vegan restaurants in Los Angeles. Worked there their first week open, left a couple months later, but stayed friends with the owners Mollie and Mimi and came back years later. While I was there, I was interested in beer always, and craft beer was like exploding at that time. And I thought there was like a lot of really big excitement around it and interesting science and stuff. So, I met somebody there who was Mollie’s brother-in-law. We started brewing together ’cause I had a little one gallon kit I was too afraid to use by myself. And then he was like, I have a five gallon kit. So, we started brewing on that and then quickly started brewing at Mollie’s house on Mondays, because she knew she wanted to open a brewery eventually. It took us a couple years to get the brewery open and so we had lots of practice for our home brews to get into pro brewing. But you know, it was still a big jumpstart into it and there was a lot to learn and still is so, yeah.
Paul Ward (01:58):
And now you are all over southern California and making organic beer with different locally sourced fruits.
Kim Rice (02:09):
Yeah, for sure. So, yeah, we’re mostly based in LA. We’re getting a little further out here and there. And we just got picked up for distribution by Scout Distributions. Hopefully we’ll reach a little further, but up until recently we mostly focused on making beer for our restaurants. Part of that was, you know, Mollie had started these restaurants that were focused on farm to table that she wanted to have locally sourced ingredients, organic ingredients. Then when the brewery came about, we opened that we realized that was a little trickier in some ways because we don’t have a malt house. And we did not at the time have a hop yard. So it presented some challenges, but I think those restrictions actually gave us some really cool outcomes. Part of that was starting the hop yard that you see behind us at the farm. We have an acre and a half hop yard. And finding a really incredible maltster up in Alameda who we can source locally from. And it’s all California grown malt.
Paul Ward (03:02):
I would think that you’re one of the few beers that actually is growing your own hops and then the beer makers actually come out and help with the harvest.
Kim Rice (03:14):
Yeah, for sure. So certainly, and that’s something a hundred percent keeps me constantly intrigued about it. Like I really love beer and I love the science behind it. But like I said, I came from a different background. I have degrees in something totally different. And then found beer and it’s like this really beautiful mix of science and art together and it’s a tangible product. Whereas a lot of times when I was writing for film stuff, I’d just like put it on a shelf for a minute, you know, and not really see those results right away. With brewery, you get a result right away, and you gotta talk to people about it. It really brings people together and brings in this sense of community. And then with the way that we do things that is very different than a lot of other breweries, I actually get to see the ingredients from the ground up, which is really incredible.
Kim Rice (03:58):
And have like a strong connection to the beer, I feel like, because I’ve seen it through all of its phases. So, we have this hop yard and that is where we source, you know, 90% of our hops. We have enough now with our, our hop yard that for their cascade variety that we can invite other breweries out to come see Harvest One, which is cool ’cause there’s not a lot of hop yards in California anymore. There used to be, but no longer. And so I think for a lot of brewers, it’s a cool experience to actually get to see that too and touch the hops and pick the hops with everybody. And also access to wet hops, which is hard to get.
Paul Ward (04:35):
What are wet hops for folks that are watching or listening that don’t know?
Kim Rice (04:39):
So, with hops, typically, what you would do with them is you would dry them down to like 8 to 10% and then you’re gonna pelletize them often and to what they call like T 90 pellets. That’s making it easier for storage, making it easier for when you’re putting beer into the tank and the fermenter afterwards ’cause they kind of dissipate. Whereas the whole cone, ’cause the hop looks like this, right? It will get clogged up. So wet hops are when you pull the hop off the bind, and you have basically 24-48 hours to put it in your brew. Otherwise, it starts to break down. If you don’t do that drying process because of the acids in there, it’ll start to break down. So wet hops are a once a year kind of thing. Brewers get them typically overnight shipped to them, but when you’re getting them from here, you actually just take ’em home with you or we can deliver if you’re local.
Kim Rice (05:27):
So, it’s a cool experience for brewers to have. I also think personally we are doing something a little different than a lot of breweries. I mean, there’s definitely other farm breweries out there, but in this area there’s not a ton of brewers that are getting their farms from their, or their hops from their own farm. So, it’s a cool experience for me to be able to bring other brewers out here to see why my day often seems like ridiculous and crazy when I’m like, “I was out of the farm, then the brewery.” Then they get to see, you know, it’s all kind of coming together and you’re getting to see the ingredients.
Paul Ward (05:55):
Right. And I would imagine you mentioned farm to table, I would imagine there’s something special about that, but also maybe just having the hops that you can then harvest and maybe use quickly. Like is that making a fresh beer?
Kim Rice (06:12):
Yeah, that’s the wet hop beer. The once-a-year wet hop beer that comes around in like late August, early September. That it just has a little bit of a different appeal and taste and I think people that really enjoy beer get excited about it because they know it’s this annual thing, a bit of a treat, but it just kind of, it gives off a little bit more of like a fresh, vibrant, little bit grassy flavor from the hop than if you were to dry it down.
Paul Ward (06:39):
Let’s talk about some of the other some of the flavors you’ve got, and some of the names. You’ve got Orange, Dreamsicle, Boozy, Booch Blueberry, Ginger. Are these beers or are these kombuchas?
Kim Rice (06:51):
So those are all kombuchas. That’s another difference. We have a large kombucha program that also just started when we were home brewing. We were Boys Brewing kombucha. And then because we had this market, which was vegan restaurants, like of course we’re gonna bring in kombucha, did not realize like, quite how big of a market there was gonna be for it at the time. So now I would say probably, you know a third of our production is kombucha. So with those, yeah, there’s a bunch of different flavors that we have now. Two are the low no alcohol ones and one is an alcoholic kombucha that I just send into a second fermentation. And that one’s like a 6% alcohol kombucha.
Paul Ward (07:31):
And for folks that don’t know, I mean, I think people are learning, but not everybody knows or has tried kombucha. What is kombucha and what is the difference between kombucha and beer?
Kim Rice (07:41):
Yeah. I’ll start with beer. Both are thousands of years old and and beer has four main ingredients typically. Obviously there’s other things added in, but typically it is barley, which is a wheatgrass. And that’s like your malt where you get your sweetness from. And then hops, which is kind of the rockstar of beer, but at the same time has been around the least amount of time. It’s good for preserving beer. That’s actually how it was first started to be used. But it also has all these great acids. Like when you pick up a leaf, the bracts, you can see the lupulin acids in there. And those or the lupulin glands that have the acids that offsets the sweet of a beer. So, you don’t have just like a very sweet water there. And then you have water, which is 90% of your beer and yeast, which are little microorganisms that without them there would be no beer. It’d just be sugar water. They eat the sugars and turn it into alcohol and CO2. So that’s your beer ingredients. Kombucha is also fermented, but it’s a fermented tea. There’s no barley, that’s why it’s gluten free. And it’s a fermented tea depending on what kind of scoby you have, which I’ll explain that. <Laugh> is either green or black tea. And then you have your sugar base, which ours is organic cane sugar. ’cause That’s what the scoby likes.
Paul Ward (08:56):
Oh, you’re getting organic cane sugar? That’s not easy to get, is it?
Kim Rice (09:00):
We have a couple good sources now in town. I think it’s hopefully becoming a little easier to get. Yeah. So, it can be tricky. And then you have your scoby, which is symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast, and that’s what turns those sugars. It ferments it and the yeast eats it, turns it into ethanol, alcohol, and then the bacteria eat that ethanol and turns it into your different kinds of acids. Acetic acid, gluconic those things, so.
Paul Ward (09:25):
And you’re adding other fun ingredients that are locally sourced, like blueberries and oranges for seasonal beers.
Kim Rice (09:32):
Yeah, for sure. But the thing we get from our farm is our gingers. We have fresh ginger and our blueberry ginger and our Boozy Booch. And then, yeah, some different ingredients from our farm too, to flavor them.
Paul Ward (09:42):
So, you’re sourcing locally grown produce, but this farm in particular is also considered a regenerative farm. What, exactly is that?
Kim Rice (09:53):
So, before when I was saying I loved beer, because it’s a beautiful blend of science and art, I also always say that I’m lucky because of where I’m at. I also get a bit of activism. That has to do with the regenerative farm aspect. Because of working here and knowing Mollie and Elias, I’ve really fallen in love with regenerative farming. And it does give a lot of hope for our earth. And its basically traditional farming practices where you’re really trying to build really good soil, nutrient dense soil, and leaving it better than you started with. And so, you’re constantly trying to put good things back into the earth instead of ripping them out. And by doing that, you’re also sequestering carbon, which is huge. You know, we talk about emissions a lot and things like that, but realistically, we need to draw down carbon because we already have too much in the atmosphere, even if we cut all emissions today.
Kim Rice (10:39):
And regenerative farming is a really great way of doing that because it’s a no-till practices. So you are not, every time you’re tilling, when you’re reaching into the ground and ripping things up you’re not only releasing carbon out into the atmosphere, but you’re also killing all of those microorganisms that live under the ground. And there’s like a quarter, you know, of our biodiversity is underground and now we are just killing those due to heat and oxygen and things like that. So by using practices like no-till and animal integration and cover crops, things like that, then we are protecting that soil or making it really nutrient rich. And because of that, everything you grow, if you think about it, it’s like little sponges. You know, everything you grow is also gonna be nutrient rich. We also do not use any kind of pesticide kind of thing or any chemical pesticides. So, you’re not putting that all over your produce that’s going out. So, then you’re just getting this really nutrient dense, beautiful product.
Paul Ward (11:36):
So, healthy beer and healthy kombucha.
Kim Rice (11:38):
Yeah, exactly.
Paul Ward (11:39):
And did the name, “Kiss the Ground Beer,” did that come from the regenerative farming?
Kim Rice (11:45):
Yeah, so “Kiss the Ground” came from the nonprofit who deals with regenerative farmers and soil health and education and getting basically lobby dollars into the right hand so that regenerative farmers can get that money that they need. They’re doing some really great things, check them out. Regenerate America is their newest push for changing some laws around regenerative farming. And they approached us about doing collaboration and, of course they aligned perfectly with us. I was really excited to do it. And so, I took a look at what we can do that will be a yearly beer that we can get round ingredients. So, citrus for us, there’s a lot of citruses at the farm. And then I wanted to make something, I made a Farmhouse Ale because that made the most sense.
Kim Rice (12:34):
That’s where we’re going back to our roots. And traditionally farmhouse ales were what farm workers would make with things that were actually on their farm for their workers in the summer. So yeah, my father actually grew up on a farm. And then when he left home, he went to college and went into computer science and I think was trying to get his family off of the farm for a different kind of life and moved out of Ohio. And I think he wanted me to go into something like business instead. I chose film much to his chagrin, but hilariously ended up back on a farm a lot of the time. But it’s been really fun to reconnect with him about that and talking about, you know, the practices that they were using versus what we are using. And yeah, I think that it’s definitely a strong connection to me. I always had a connection to farming and wanting to learn more and be more connected to my food and beverage, and this has been a really incredible way to learn about it. It’s
Paul Ward (13:30):
Awesome. So, just outta curiosity, what is it like being a woman brew maker in a kind of a traditionally male dominated world?
Kim Rice (13:41):
I mean, everybody has their own experience and certainly there’s been some hardships of, you know, feeling like I’m not being taken seriously a lot in the beginning. But also, I mean, I think that I’ve had a really incredible community because there’s not a lot of women brewers or women in the brew industry in general. We band together pretty strongly. And so, LA has a pretty incredible community of women. And I’m heavily involved with some nonprofits that work with women and non-binary individuals in the fermentable space, Pink Boots, notably. And so, I think I’ve had a relatively good experience because I’ve had such strong allies. And als.
New Speaker (14:17):
o, in general across the board, the L.A. Beer scene has been really incredible to work with. And everybody is just so excitable and open to ideas and open to talking to everybody about how, what their process is like. I think everybody still feels like we’re fighting big beer, so you’re not my competition even though you’re two doors away, you know, and all craft beer rises together. So, yeah.
Paul Ward (14:40):
Cool. And what’s the future of Sage Brews? Do you see yourself expanding into other markets? I know you’re kind of heading to Texas too.
Kim Rice (14:47):
Yeah, so we have a big project coming up there. Mollie and Elias bought 200 acres in Hill Country. And so, we are opening a destination brewery/restaurant, a farm restaurant, and a hospitality stay, which I’ll have I think enough places for about 80 people to stay so we can have big events there, weddings, whatnot. That part is really exciting to me. And I think one of the biggest reasons for that is it’s like a blank slate. And when I think about, you know, brewing and the opportunities that I’ve had here and the uniqueness of our brewery and working with this farm, I think one of the most exciting things to me is that I like to think about like what the earth can give to us to make beer instead of vice versa. And, and I know there’s lots of like rules and traditions and brewing and I respect them, but the more education I get, the more I learn about farming, the more I can learn about those ingredients, how to manipulate them to also work for the earth.
Kim Rice (15:42):
And what kind of rules can we break to still have really great beer, but we’re also making it in a way that’s less harmful, more sustainable. And so, with Texas, like I recently had this one (idea), I was incredibly inspired and I called Mollie the next day. I’m like, “Can we grow Kernza? How well does it grow in Texas?”
Paul Ward (16:00):
And what’s that? What is Kernza? <laugh>.
Kim Rice (16:02):
It’s a grain that has these incredibly long roots and it’s a perennial, so it stays in the ground. So, it continues to keep trapping carbon, keep trapping carbon. There is a brewery that works with Patagonia that does partial kernza beer now. And I’m sure there’s other places out there. I think it’s starting to pop up. But in my mind we have this new blank slate so we can kind of look at, we don’t have a menu set already, so what works for us?
Kim Rice (16:27):
What can we grow and close the gap as much as we can keep it on the farm as much as we can when it comes to growing, brewing, and selling so that our footprint is a lot smaller and also we’re working with ingredients that are not going to harm the earth to yeah. And so I didn’t talk about sage fruits though. <Laugh>. So our LA market we are expanding a little bit outside of ourselves. And outside of the restaurants, like I said, we got picked up by distribution. So we are in talks with some places now like Whole Foods and Total Wine. And a couple things like that that I’m really excited. They have good initiatives when it comes to women owned, women brewed and regenerative agriculture, which is really exciting to hear that there are some places out there that really care about that kind of stuff. So, we’re trying to get in there.
Paul Ward (17:15):
Very cool! And folks that, you know, don’t live close to the restaurants, that are listening or watching, how could they try some of your products? Is there a website that they can visit
Kim Rice (17:26):
Right now, we’re not going direct to customer, but we do hope in the future we will, I think once we get things sorted out with our distribution here, hopefully. And if you’re in town, please come to Sage. We’ve got an Echo Park restaurant and a Pasadena restaurant, and we’re opening a new bar Saturday in our Echo Park restaurant. It serves both farm fresh cocktails and all of our beers.
Paul Ward (17:49):
Where are the restaurants specifically?
Kim Rice (17:51):
So, we have two in Los Angeles, two brick and mortars in Los Angeles. We have Echo Park and that’s where we’re opening our new bar, Table 16. And also has a full restaurant. And then Pasadena, we also have a restaurant, and you can also visit our website, which is sageveganbistro.com to check out what we’re doing, and we will be putting up availability if we start to get into some places like Whole Foods and Total Wine, stuff like that.
Paul Ward (18:16):
Awesome. So, you went from film into beer, I mean two totally separate industries and you know, you didn’t go to college to be a brew master, so you’re kind of jumping in, but you have this determination and just this drive. So how was that? I mean, you didn’t have the education, but you had the will.
Kim Rice (18:35):
Yeah, it certainly presented a slew of challenges and still does. It was just a really large knowledge gap and I think in some ways that was good. I get easily bored, so when there is endless to learn and I will never master it by any means, I think that’s good. That keeps me engaged constantly. I do not recommend going straight into owning a brewery after only having home brewed go work at a brewery on somebody else’s time, make those mistakes, learn a little bit, and then go back because I knew nothing from the start and had, it took us a lot longer I think, to take off because of all of these little knowledge gaps that we had. But because of it, you know, I have really strong sense of ownership and it’s been it’s been a pretty incredible journey.
Kim Rice (19:17):
Overall, in general, I would say the biggest challenge for me has been coming to terms with how to deal with like, when you are running a small business, this constant oscillation of the highest highs you’ve ever had, where you’re like, “Oh my God, I could do anything. Do you need a boat? I’ll go get you a boat.” And then the next day being like, “Oh, I am so underwater. I literally don’t how I’m gonna get outta this physically, mentally, emotionally.” Anything like that and knowing that the pendulum will swing back and you will be fine. There’s just gonna be a lot of ups and downs and you have to kind of keep an even keel attitude through it all. Not that I do, but I try.
Paul Ward (19:52):
And determination and just knowing that you’re gonna achieve it however you need to. And I would think that you went from the, the one-gallon, you know, garage to the friend with five-gallon and now all of a sudden you’re making these giant, is it steel? I mean a giant steel drums of beer. I mean, it’s kind of a…
Kim Rice (20:11):
Yeah.
Paul Ward (20:11):
A big leap as well.
Kim Rice (20:13):
Yeah, absolutely. And, and that friend too, which actually helped, you know he’s still at the restaurants. He’s doing more management side stuff now but was also there in the beginning while we were trying to figure it out together. And yeah, we went from his five-gallon batch to, we actually had like a one-barrel system we were brewing on the first year because of permitting stuff. So that was fun. We were brewing, you know, near daily on that system. And then now we are on basically an eight barrel-system which is about 300 gallons
Paul Ward (20:45):
Per day?
Kim Rice (20:46):
No, not per day. Probably we’re bring about once a week now, but there’s lots to be done in between, between packaging, celery, cleaning, lots of cleaning. Being a brewer is being a janitor that also gets to drink some beer.
Paul Ward (20:58):
So, is Sage Brews getting recognized? Have you won any awards?
Kim Rice (21:02):
Yeah, I’ve just starting now to apply for those competitions and things like that. I just never could find the bandwidth before, but I do know it’s important. We also, because we make such interesting adventurous beers, they don’t always fit into a traditional category. Now there’s more categories for experimental stuff. So, I did just apply for our first one and I just got a notification that we won some sort of award at California State Fair has a really great beer festival of all places. And we sent in our hard kombucha, the Boozy Booch.
Paul Ward (21:34):
Awesome. And what are you finding that people like, I mean, you’re experimenting, right? You’re using locally sourced products; you’re using blueberries and oranges and ginger. I mean, what are kind of the flavors that are kind of the traditional that people like, but others that maybe you’re finding out that you tried that you didn’t know if it was gonna take off or not, and then all of a sudden people just kind of loved it?
Kim Rice (21:58):
Yeah, I think I’m actually always surprised by what people are liking. I mean, you have your standards that, you know, people are going to drink. And also, because we’re a restaurant, we get a lot of the lighter beers order because if you’re having a meal, you know, you want like a lagger or a pilsner. We noticed that when we went to packaged goods as far as cans, we started canning during the pandemic. We got a canning line and all of a sudden like more IPAs are getting ordered because, so people are drinking at home by themselves instead of out at dinner when they want something light to go at their meal. And I think people generally enjoy the seasonals. Our strawberry blonde was one of our best sellers that really, that came out of the way a lot of our seasonals come about, I should say, is I’ll come out here, Mollie will say, “I have a bumper crop of this.” And I’m like, “I don’t want that to go to waste.” And so, then I’ll make a beer out of it or a kombucha with that. They had strawberries that it was a really weird year weather-wise, and so they looked a little funky. and that took go off on a tangent, but we do have a problem in our society about people and imperfect fruit.
Paul Ward (22:59):
Oh yeah, I’m guilty myself, <laugh> start to get over to the bananas. You know… it’s like…
Kim Rice (23:02):
I think that we are starting to get a little better to that and opening our eyes to that, but the really great thing about beer is it doesn’t matter. You’re not gonna see it. So, those strawberries tasted great, but they were a little misshapen and she wanted to use them for something other than putting in the CSA boxes. So, we made a strawberry blonde out of that strawberry with a little bit of basil, and that was that was one of our more popular ones. I think it’s really accessible, an accessible wheat beer.
Paul Ward (23:27):
How does that work? I mean, you get a giant crate of strawberries and somebody’s just kind of manually cutting off all the stems. And then do you smash the strawberries? Do you add ’em to the vat hole? How do you add a fruit to beer?
Kim Rice (23:43):
It depends on what kind of fruit it is. Strawberries. Yeah, we’re chop the stems, blending them up. Oftentimes we’ll freeze stuff because you wanna make sure you’re getting rid of anything that’s growing on it, so it doesn’t grow in your beer. Any kinda bacteria or yeast or anything. Or we will do a hot side where we are putting it in boiling water, boiling it for a few minutes, and then we generally add them in secondary fermentation, which is after, you know, your beer, the alcohol has been made and your beer is nearly ready to go. You add that in and get some flavor from that in your fermenter.
Paul Ward (24:15):
And you would do kind of the same process for oranges or blueberries or, similar?
Kim Rice (24:20):
‘Ish. Oranges, we usually use the peel a lot. And that’s a really cool thing about the Kiss the Ground beer. I’ll say we take our lemons and oranges from the farm; we juice them, we use those juices for the restaurant, and then I take the peels, I char the lemon peels, and then we put them in the boil with some lemon verbena. And for me, that’s such a huge win because you’re getting double use ingredient before it goes back to compost. So anytime I can do that, I’m happy.
Paul Ward (24:46):
Very cool.
Kim Rice (24:47):
So yeah, I think, and I’ve always been, I’ve always rooted for the underdog kind of thing, and always I think out of empathy. Like when I was a kid, I used to make my mom buy the crushed cans at the grocery store because I felt bad for them that they were going to go to waste. I dunno, I’ve always been like pushing anamorphic qualities onto, you know, cans of whatever, didn’t really think about botulism and things like that when I was a kid. But I think in that I’ve always, you know, had some sort of empathy for waste. And then I still was very disconnected from food and still until I was working here. And food and beverage, you know, beer is an agricultural product and we don’t really always think of it that way. Right. But now when I am seeing a hop grow, like when one falls on the ground at work and we can’t use it, I’m very sad <laugh> because it, like I know that this took so much time and effort to get from here to there, and we have one of the smallest footprints and gaps in a lot of places as far as ingredients go.
Kim Rice (25:44):
But still, I know all the love and care that it went into it. So I think that’s just made me hopefully more passionate and I still have a world to learn, but I think it’s a really important connection to your food and food waste because it is a really big problem that we have in this country.
Paul Ward (25:59):
Absolutely. And you know, funny, it’s total sidebar, but my son is a boy scout and the first badge, merit badge that he got was the gardening badge. And you need 21 badges to become an Eagle Scout. And he’s just a very passionate gardener. So part of the badge was to start your own compost bin. And so we got the big compost bin and all of our green waste goes in that bin, and the soil is amazing, and it’s like, wow. It just came from like banana peels and lettuce and just all the green waste. And now it’s like all of the worms found, somehow found this tub with, you know, terrible soil all around it. But it’s like the little, the little garden of Eden right in the backyard. And so it’s like all that, all the animals come to that, come to that spot.
Kim Rice (26:43):
They know where to go, it’s gratifying. Right. And then we have, we have, same with the restaurants in here, and I think Mollie talked about this, like that’s one of the reasons she started the or got the farm was because of all the food waste from the restaurants. And same with brewing. We collect all the spent grain that after brewing collect it, take it back here and feed it to the animals. They love it. We also pick up from another 10 breweries in town or something, all of their grains so that it’s not going to waste and it’s not going into the landfill and creating methane. Instead it’s going to our farm and either becoming compost or it’s feeding the animals and then their, their waste will become compost.
Paul Ward (27:21):
And that’s where the whole regenerative Yes thing comes in, is you’re replenishing the soil.
Kim Rice (27:26):
Replenishing the soil, and fully cyclical and trying to waste as little as possible just putting it back into the ground.
Paul Ward (27:30):
Awesome. So, Kim Rice, thank you so much for being our guest on this episode of Farm Talk. We’ve loved having you and learning from you. It’s been awesome. And I think that our listeners and watchers will love learning from you as well. So thank you so much.
Kim Rice (27:44):
Thank you. What a pleasure.
Paul Ward (27:46):
Absolutely. And of course, we wanna thank our sponsor, Opus Escrow, and be sure to tune in next time for another edition of Farm Talk.