Caybrew and Earthrings: Partners in Sustainability
The Cayman Islands Brewery—or Caybrew—is the “premium beer of the Cayman Islands.” But you don’t have to take their word for it—their local beer was voted number one in the Best of Cayman Islands in 2024.
But Caybrew is so much more than delicious IPAs and lagers. Their commitment to brewing Caymanian-inspired beverages is matched only by their extraordinary dedication to sustainability. Deeply invested in preserving the beauty (and magic) of the Cayman Islands, Caybrew pursues every opportunity to protect their beloved island home.
How? We’re so glad you asked.
Caybrew entices local drinkers to return their glass bottles, offering $4 for every case returned. The bottles are cleaned, sanitized, and reused over and over again, delighting drinkers with excellent beer for as long as possible.
With solar panels on the brewery roof, Caybrew takes advantage of the Cayman Island weather, harnessing a significant portion of its electricity from the sun. They also reuse their spent grain, giving any used grains to local farmers to use as feed for livestock.
(Don’t worry, no animals are catching a buzz from spent grains—just high protein and fiber!)
On top of all that, Caybrew donates a portion of their White Tip Lager sales to the conservation of the White Tip shark.
It should come as no surprise that, in 2024, The Cayman Islands Brewery made the switch to Earthrings: A totally sustainable, home-compostable, recyclable plastic packaging alternative. Is there any higher endorsement than that?
Our Director of Sales, Mike Burns, recently sat down with Chris Olson, Technical Manager at The Cayman Islands Brewery, to find out why they decided to partner with Earthrings.
Earthrings: To start, tell us your favorite beer styles.
Caybrew: IPA! West Coast is a new interesting version that I like—extra special bitter. English-style beer. I quite enjoy that one!
Earthrings: What type of packaging were you using prior to Earthrings?
Caybrew: We were using Wave Grip Plastic Rings.
Earthrings: And why did you want to switch?
Caybrew: Mostly for the sustainability aspect of the cardboard as opposed to plastic six-pack rings. That was our real motivator, getting started. But actually, I would throw in that Wave Grip could be difficult to work with at times—I didn’t like their organization as much, so I was interested in finding someone else to work with. I liked that you (Mike Burns) and I had a relationship in the past!
Earthrings: And why did you pick Earthrings over other options?
Caybrew: Having a personal relationship with you and knowing how you operate was a big part of it. But I believe that the quality of the actual six-pack ring you produced at Earthrings is superior to the other ones we saw on the market—the structural durability of it was higher than the other ones we looked at, which was big for me.
Your price point per unit also came in at a nice number, so that really helped us.
And then, seeing the applicators—different versions that compare to yours—I like your structure. Some applicators were overly complicated, over-engineered, and some were too simple, under-engineered. Yours hit that sweet spot in the middle.
Earthrings: Seems like your team is excited about Earthrings. There’s some palpable energy around the switch, here in the Cayman Islands. Is that what you’re finding?
Caybrew: Very much so! Our marketing team is very excited about it, our corporate executive team is very excited. Especially on an island in the Caribbean, sustainability is a big thing.
Introducing a compostable, cardboard, six-pack ring was really the next step toward sustainability that we were looking to take. We’re trying to go zero-plastic altogether if we can, so that six-pack ring has made a big difference for us.
Earthrings: How did we do? How was our installation process?
Caybrew: Good! It was nice that the CB 350 machine was shipped down to us.
We had some unloading issues that had to do with us on-site, but I was really happy with the responsiveness of your team, to get on a conference call with us. Our issues had nothing to do with Earthrings, but I really appreciated the entire team getting on a call with me to go through the machine, prior to your visit. The fact that you did such a good job creating such a robust machine—as well as crating/shipping it so well—proves that there was nothing wrong with the machine, and we were able just to install it.
You guys showing up and getting everything in place and installed was great. The timing of everything went really well. It’s definitely one of the best machines that I’ve seen installed lately without a lot of problems, so that was very nice to see. Obviously there will be little hiccups here and there, but it was quite an easy install.
The next time you’re in the Caribbean (or Canada, believe it or not!), be sure to try Cayman Island’s Premium Brewing Company—you won’t be disappointed.
