Thanks to The Florida Museum of Natural History and First Magnitude Brewing Co., going out for a beer this Friday can be an environmental act.
Local brewery and Gainesville hangout First Magnitude, located at 1220 SE Veitch St., has partnered with the Florida Museum to launch a limited-run pale ale called One Tree to raise money for student-based biodiversity research and study. The One Tree beer launch will be at First Magnitude from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. Friday.
The beer was brewed by First Magnitude with 11 different ingredients including orange peel, Irish moss, honey, wheat, Spanish cedar, gallberry and oats. This wide range of ingredients creates a “crisp, citrusy refreshing beer,” said First Magnitude marketing coordinator Simon McClung.
“We wanted to have as many ingredients in the beer as possible so we can represent as much of the tree of life as possible, and they were all over it,” said UF professor and Biodiversity Institute director Pamela Soltis.
Wristbands will be available for purchase at the Friday night event for $10. These wristbands give customers special discounts on all beers. T-shirts and cups bearing the One Tree One Planet logo will also be available at the event. Proceeds and donations collected from the launch will be donated to the UF Biodiversity Institute, McClung said.
McClung described the First Magnitude staff as conservation-minded. They have worked with the Florida Museum on similar projects in the past, catching the attention of Soltis and the Biodiversity Institute.
The One Tree beer launch is part of a larger series called One Tree One Planet, which aims to increase awareness about the importance of biodiversity. Soltis said that biodiversity is simply the totality of all life on Earth — the complexity of our world’s organisms.
“A healthy ecosystem provides us with services that we, as humans, take for granted,” Soltis said. “If we had to do them all by mechanical means, it would be hundreds of millions of dollars or more.”
Soltis wants to help people understand the importance of biodiversity and environmental balance. With urbanization, Soltis said, it is easy to forget how critical the health of these complex ecosystems is to humanity.
Protecting this complexity, or biodiversity, means protecting access to oxygen and clean water, preventing devastating flood damage, allowing for further medical advancement and more, Soltis said.
In addition to the launch at First Magnitude, One Tree One Planet events include special screenings of a short animated film created for the series by the UF Digital Worlds Institute. These screenings will be held at the Florida Museum from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. Thursday and Saturday. The film will also be screened at the One Tree beer launch.
