CO2 Shortage

What’s Going On?

By Kenneth Konarzewski Jr.

Better on Draft Kendall Jones, of the Washington Beer Blog, first reported in April of 2020 that the production of carbon dioxide (CO2) was beginning to slow down, which would cause a dwindle of (beer) supply and an increase in price. All of this seems to be coming to fruition as of late, but there is more to the story than just another supply chain issue.

There are other limiting factors surrounding the CO2 supply chain such as the requirement of dry ice for the COVID-19 vaccine, less gas being produced during 2020-2022 which was a simple yet effective calculation of less ethanol equates to less CO2. And the world’s ammonia producers, which are the leading source of CO2, are down as well. To top it all off , the Jackson Dome area in Mississippi had a contamination issue which caused another segment of the country to run into a CO2 shortage.

The first thing to understand is that most large breweries utilize their own CO2 capture systems, so the consumer should not see a slowdown from the largest breweries in the country. But what about the smaller breweries in our backyard?

Some breweries are going to hurt similar to Night Shift Brewing in Everett, Massachusetts, which recently cited the CO2 shortage as the reason for laying off its production team and switching to contract brewing. Other breweries will attempt to adapt by buying and installing technology to harvest CO2 from smaller sources such as transportation, homes and businesses. Austin, Texas-based Earthly Labs is a leader in this technology. If you’re interested in finding out more about the technology, listen to Episode 297 of Better on Draft featuring Kim Brisson-Lutz of Maui Brewing at betterondraft.com.

If you’re skeptical and want more hard numbers, look at the chart below with 2021’s production numbers for our local metro area breweries. Compare them to the numbers from 2019 and 2020, and revisit the numbers next year to see if the CO2 shortage hits Michigan breweries in any form.