Budweiser is taking advantage of consumers’ energy-related ignorance by stating that its beers are brewed with 100 percent renewable electricity, according to an energy expert.
Energy analyst Alex Epstein has argued that the claim by Budweiser is false, pointing out that “most of the energy that goes into its beer is fossil fuel.” He believes that such claims mislead the public about the possibility of relying solely on renewable energy.
In 2018, Anheuser-Busch, the maker of Budweiser, announced that “Budweiser has launched a renewable electricity symbol that indicates when a Budweiser beer is brewed with 100 percent renewable electricity.” This claim might lead consumers to believe that the beer is brewed only using renewable energy.
Epstein also highlighted the Anheuser-Busch Jacksonville, Florida, facility, which produces Budweiser along with other Anheuser-Busch brands. He stated that tanks at the facility that are visible on Google Maps are for natural gas.
“How many of Budweiser’s customers reading a ‘100 percent renewable electricity’ label have any idea that most of the brewing is being done using fossil fuels—including this natural gas facility in Jacksonville that Budweiser uses?” he wrote on Twitter.
When reached by The Epoch Times, a spokesperson for the Anheuser-Busch facility in Jacksonville couldn’t confirm whether there were operational natural gas turbines at the plant.
Epstein also criticized the company’s reliance on renewable energy credits in order to claim that the electricity it uses is 100 percent renewable.
“I consider their main public-facing messaging—‘100 percent renewable electricity’ and ‘brewed with 100 percent renewable electricity’—which is all that 99 percent of the public sees, to be lying, because it involves at least some and usually all of the three deceptions that I mentioned,” Epstein told The Epoch Times.
The “three deceptions,” in Epstein’s words, are: “1. Only counting brewing—a small percentage of beer’s energy use. 2. Only counting the fraction of brewing energy that comes from electricity. 3. Falsely labeling its fossil fuel electricity as ’renewable.'”
Epstein has asked Budweiser to publicly apologize for presenting what he sees as misleading and incomplete information on its energy use. He told The Epoch Times that Anheuser-Busch hasn’t yet done so.
“Surely they think that if they lay low, this issue won’t get too much attention. I aim to prove them very wrong,” he said.
Epstein thinks that Anheuser-Busch’s claims are damaging to the public understanding of how energy is actually produced and used.
“Not only do I consider this fraud, because the lying is designed to win over customers, but I am alarmed by how effective ‘100 percent renewable’ and ‘net zero’ lies have been at advancing disastrous political attempts to achieve these impossible targets,” he told The Epoch Times.
“The current Build Back Better bill, for example, which is designed to move to net-zero by 2050, should be viewed as calling for the total destruction of American energy. But because ... energy liars claim to be ‘net zero,’ Americans think we as a nation can be as well.”
Anheuser-Busch’s corporate office didn’t respond to requests for comment from The Epoch Times.