The 2023 Virginia Green Travel Leader Award goes to Stable Craft Brewing in Hermitage Hill.
Presented by the Virginia Green Travel Alliance, the award recognizes the greenest tourism operators and partners for their outstanding commitments to sustainability and contributions to green tourism in the Commonwealth. Awards were presented by Virginia Tourism Corporation’s Rita McClenney with the Virginia Green Travel Conference & Awards at the Virginia Beach Convention Center on March 21 and 22.
“Our Virginia Green Travel Partners are conserving natural resources, engaging customers and working to increase sustainable tourism business in Virginia. The Virginia Green Travel Star Awards recognizes the ‘greenest’ businesses and individuals that have demonstrated outstanding commitments to the environment in the past year. We are proud to recognize these businesses as they are true partners in our efforts to promote sustainable tourism in Virginia,” Virginia Green Travel Alliance Executive Director Tom Griffin said.
Recently, Stable Craft won the 2022 Green Brewery of the Year award and the Best Beer and Cider at international competitions.
“We pride ourselves on making craft beers that make visiting our brewery repeatedly worth the trip,” Stable Craft Brewing owner
Craig Nargi said. “Great beer that you can’t get anywhere else is the focal point of the Stable Craft experience. But our staff is also committed and takes tremendous pride in all of our sustainable initiatives and receiving this kind of recognition from the Virginia Green Travel Alliance motivates them to want to do even more.”
The brewer is the first on the East Coast to launch a zero-food waste initiative for its brewery, restaurant and wedding and banquet facility. The sustainable brewery also grows its own hops, utilizes the brewing wastewater to water hops, co-ops with a local farmer to use the spent grain for food for the cattle and has planted 1,100 trees on the farm to help with erosion and air quality. Tours are available of sustainable initiatives by reservation only.
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Rebecca Barnabi
