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n November, a unique arrangement for recovery and upgrade of ethanol celebrated an expansion on the grounds of IAMC member company Coors Brewing Co. in Golden, Colo. "This doubles the plant's capacity," said Steve Wagner, vice president, Energy Process Systems, for Aurora, Colo.-based Merrick & Company, an architecture, engineering and design firm. "We can now produce three million gallons per year of fuel-grade ethanol."

Two cranes help lift the main processing unit into place at the Merrick & Co. ethanol recovery plant on the property of Coors Brewing Co.'s main brewery in Golden, Colo. The new unit has doubled capacity at the facility, which upgrades waste product to fuel-grade ethanol. Photo: Merrick & Co.

   Merrick owns the plant and Coors is under contract to operate it. The Merrick-Coors partnership began when then Total Petroleum asked Merrick to construct an ethanol plant at Total's Denver refinery in 1995. But waste transport costs made it unfeasible. Instead, Merrick leased land from Coors and built the continuous production process plant at the brewery's Golden plant. Merrick purchases the alcohol condensate waste stream from the brewery, upgrades it to 200-proof fuel-grade ethanol, and sells it.
   As a result of their efforts, Coors and Merrick have been able to return nearly 20 million gallons of water to Clear Creek every year. Neil Jaquet, director of water resources and real estate for Coors, is an IAMC member.
   "We have a long-term lease on three parcels of land in the brewery," on not much more than one acre, Wagner tells Site Selection, noting the length of the document in order to accommodate easements and insurance requirements. One parcel features the process plant, one a tank farm and one a load-in, load-out rack for bringing in denaturant and taking out the ethanol.
   "This is not common at all," says Wagner, but there's a scale issue that comes into effect: "It's possible," he says, "because it's the largest brewery in a single spot in the world."