A Dorset-based brewery has used lockdown to turn its beer into green energy, generating enough electricity to power close to 17,000 average homes for one day.

With pubs closed across the UK during lockdown, Hall & Woodhouse found a sustainable solution for all the expired beer it had produced, by using it to create electricity.

It has also installed a wastewater treatment plant as part of its brewery, which creates biogas. The biogas is then used to generate electricity to power its packaging lines and utilities.

The family-owned business has set monthly targets for its use of self-generated electricity, in its aim to become carbon-neutral.

Toby Heasman, Hall & Woodhouse Head Brewer, said: “Although lockdown meant that many of our pubs had to return unsold beer back to the brewery, the silver lining has been that none of this has gone to waste.

“Thanks to our wastewater treatment plant, all of the returned beer has been used to generate green electricity.”