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INDEX 2006

• Solar Powered Beer
• WE GOT BEER

Archive Index:  Past releases and stories from AVBC

WE GOT BEER

On April 7, Anderson Valley Brewing Company will raise a pint in celebration of the day that beer once again became legally available at the end of Prohibition. Come on by and join us in a toast. Brewery tours at 1:30 and 4:00 will be free to all, and there will be free nibbles at the bar (including a deliscious gorgonzola wheel which goes delightfully with our Brother David's Double Abbey-style Ale).

While full repeal came on December 5, 1933, an amendment to Prohibition legalized beer with 3.2 percent alcohol by weight (4.0 percent by volume) starting on April 7 of that year. From that date on, the country’s brewers were back in business and Americans enjoyed legal beer for eight months before wine and spirits were once again legitimate.

For more info on what breweries in your neck of the woods are doing to celebrate, go to www.brewyearseve.com

Anderson Valley Now Brewing Solar Powered Beer

Pete Gregson of Advance Power stands amid the 176 panels of the small array. Part of the large array can be seen behind.

(February 6, 2006 - Boonville CA) After a final inspection by PG&E, we were at last able to put the finishing touch on our $860,000 state-of-the-art photovoltaic project  -  Throwing the switch and making our own juice (the electric kind). Yep! We're finally up and running, and those 768beautiful solar panels (almost 12,160 square feet of them) are creating enough juice to cut the brewery's entire electrical bill almost in half! Now whenever you savor a Boonville Beer, you can savor the fact that you're drinking a solar powered beer and helping protect the environment.

The system includes state-of-the-art photovoltaic panels, with a life expectancy of forty to fifty years, paired with new-generation inverters, in a self-contained system. The $860,000 project will include two arrays; a 175' by 53' array on the roof of the brewery's cellar and packaging facility, and an auxiliary 120' by 24' ground-based freestanding array. When completed in June of this year, the combined array will contain seven hundred-sixty eight 40" by 57" panels, each generating 187 watts per panel, for a combined output of 125,000 watts per hour at 480 volts AC, during the day's five peak solar hours.

To read more on our photovoltaic system, see our 2005 Press Releases.