Some craft breweries hit hiccup, close doors because of carbon dioxide shortages

America’s beer drinkers could be in for a dry spell, thanks to a carbon dioxide shortage that is preventing some brewers from giving the drink its fizz.

The carbon dioxide shortfall stems from processing problems at an extinct Mississippi volcano, the Jackson Dome, that supplies thousands of tons of carbon dioxide nationwide.

A gas leak from a mine into the volcano’s supply has caused contamination, which means the carbon dioxide cannot be used for food or drink products, Sam Rushing, president of Advanced Cryogenics, told the industrial gas news website gasworld.com in July.

“All the raw gas sent to the CO2 firms for liquefaction and purification are faced with contaminated product; thus they cannot operate at this time,” Mr. Rushing said then.

Denbury, which owns the Jackson Dome, denies there is contamination, NBC News reported.

“The CO2 produced at Jackson Dome has been and is being produced within all regulatory requirements, and the composition of the delivered CO2 continues to meet contractual specifications. … Certain customers with specific needs, such as food and beverage grade requirements, are working to address processing issues that may exist in their distribution chains,” the company said in an August statement.

Other supply chain snarls include scheduled maintenance shutdowns of ammonia plants, another source of food-grade carbon dioxide.

“I am also told the large CO2 supplies in Augusta, Georgia, sourced from ammonia production, are also unavailable at present due to a 60-day ammonia plant turnaround,” Mr. Rushing told gasworld.com.

The carbonation crisis has caused some craft breweries to shut their doors.

“Our members are coming through two-and-a-half years of COVID shutdowns and other supply chain issues and inflation, so it’s just another blow in a long series of challenges they’ve had to face. Some members have thrown in the towel,” Chuck Skypeck, technical brewing projects director at the Brewers Association, told NBC News.

Some brewers are now operating from carbon dioxide delivery to delivery, unable to produce anything above that margin.

“We’ve been running delivery to delivery for the past few weeks, and we are certainly concerned about the supply. We’ve looked into CO2 capture systems, but the lead times are five to six months, which doesn’t address the current supply problems,” Massachusetts brewer Ronn Friedlander told Axios.

Mr. Friedlander’s Aeronaut Brewery has even explored using nitrogen as a source of fizz in lieu of carbon dioxide.

Brewers in other states, however, suggest that the Jackson Dome-related shortage may be hitting New England harder than where they live.

“So far, we’ve been safe from it, but it is geographically-based. To my knowledge, the bulk of the issues have been up in New England,” Susquehanna Brewing Company Vice President Fred Maier told WNEP-TV, a Scranton ABC affiliate.