Many things go great with a refreshing, cold beer. Out of all those options, it’s hard to argue against the sun — all that to say, it’s hard to surpass cracking open a cold one as the warmth of the sun’s rays wash over you. When Mad Mole Brewing opened its doors in Wilmington, North Carolina, in 2018, it took the idea of pairing beer and the sun a little more literally.
The brewery, founded on the guiding principles of promoting sustainability and making a positive communal impact, has been crafting beer that is literally “Brewed by the Sun” since day one. What that really means is that Mad Mole Brewing operates a seven-barrel electric system powered partially by solar panels — 63 SunPower solar panels, to be exact. Its immediate investment in sun power paid off in more ways than just energy savings, as it was voted America’s Favorite Solar Craft Microbrewery in 2019, only a year after opening.
Interestingly enough, the Wilmington brewery only found out about the solar award after an erroneous Google search by a bar manager led her to stumble upon the competition and subsequently submit an entry application. The brewery’s founding team is formed by friends and co-workers Martin de Jongh, Ole Pederson, Chris Worden, and Thomas Varnum, who all decided to launch a microbrewing business together in late 2017.
Photo Courtesy Mad Mole Brewing
Pederson and de Jongh had been homebrewing for nearly a decade before deciding to share their passion for beer with the world. The name Mad Mole Brewing borrows the “M” from Martin and takes the entire “Ole” from Ole to form MOLE. The addition of mad was an allusion to “mad scientist” and the notion that brewing is more of a science than a guessing game.
The longtime friends and homebrewers are always looking to expand their environmental impact through various projects and initiatives. As for what exactly those 63 solar panels sitting on the roof of Mad Mole Brewing do, Pederson himself explained it best.
“The brewery has 63 panels that provide 22 kilowatts of power. The solar array panels are tied into our electrical main, so what it generates can be used by everything that needs power,” he said in a 2019 Encore Magazine interview. “If we happen to produce more than we use, it goes to the grid and gives us credit. Currently, the panels account for about 1/3 of our electrical usage.”
Photo Courtesy Mad Mole Brewing
The brewery began working on different ways to reduce its waste stream. Starting in mid-2022, it began offering internship opportunities to undergraduate students majoring in Environmental Science at the University of North Carolina Wilmington (UNCW).
The addition of interns has seen a tremendous increase in operational sustainability. While small-scale sustainability operations existed beforehand, interns were responsible for still ongoing initiatives like a plastic bag recycling program, yielding large-scale compost from trub, turning salvaged wood into decorations, and even a more efficient stormwater runoff system.
Even more recently, Mad Mole Brewing has partnered with the UNCW recycling center to expand its program to all breweries in the Cap Fear region, cementing its status as a sustainability leader for the state’s craft beer industry. It has also partnered with groups like the Cape Fear River Watch and Keep New Hanover Beautiful to sponsor and support clean-ups using reusable bags.
If there’s one thing evident from Mad Mole Brewing’s past endeavors, the future looks bright (sunny?) for its community and environment — cheers to that!
