Test 2
Betsy Ross Farms
One of our guiding principles at Beerburg is the belief that we are Better Together. Every decision that we make in the brewery, kitchen, or as a business takes our community into consideration. Ultimately, it’s because we believe that every tiny part that comes together to create what we are matters.
Betsy Ross means many things to Beerburg. Not only is she the provider of the delicious beef for our scratch kitchen, a talented soil chemist, and a powerhouse of knowledge… she is also one of the leading sources of inspiration behind Beerburg’s guiding philosophy.
Sexy Cattle
I was introduced to Betsy Ross during one of the many outdoor classes at the Sacred Journey School of Herbalism. Her farm raises cattle to supply beef for local businesses (Betsy Ross Beef), but is primarily focused on soil restoration through liquid compost extracts created using her own proprietary methods (Sustainable Growth Texas). These liquid composts help build back the land’s microbiome and chemically balance the soil. It is hard to understand without visiting, but everyone who meets Betsy and sees what she does with her land is changed forever in some way. I stayed in touch with her after that first visit and, after spending some time touring Beerburg, Betsy and her small team created a customized plan that we are implementing to revive much of our land that has been stunted for some time or was destroyed during construction.
Betsy was not always a soil chemist. She has a close family member whose autoimmune disease lead them to discover a lack of nutrients available in most meats, nutrients that should have been there. She took a personal interest in understanding why this was the case and discovered it wasn’t just a lack of nutrients in the food animals were eating, it went all the way to the soil.
I’ve walked Betsy’s property several times now, and brought many people to see it. You can’t walk more than 50 feet from your car without stopping to identify an incredible variety of plants. Each one Betsy knows by name and can tell you not only what they provide to the soil, but what they extract, how they interact with the plants around them, what nutrients the cows get from them, and what they return to the soil when they die. The most critical part, she will explain, is how they affect the charge of the soil and the microbiome of the entire property. I tried to take notes on this several times, but I can never keep up with the amount of knowledge she provides. One example from my notes goes like this, “The sow thistle gives potassium to the soil. Potassium has positive charge and the clay has a negative charge. If you have the right charge from potassium, magnesium, etc. then things ‘float’ in your soil. She’s talking fast about cautious and charges in soil and how they affect the way things flow through the soil.”
She discovered the source of the problem: dead soil. This led her to develop a propriety method for liquid composting that creates not just the right mix of nutrients, but the right charge for the plants and the right conditions for a microbiome to build life back in to the soil. With everything in balance, photosynthesis works way better and all the energy from sunlight goes all the way to the roots, down to the microbiome which feeds the soil and builds its way back up into the plant and eventually the meat.
All these conditions working in harmony allows life to return to the land. The plants thrive bringing nutrients back to the whole system. Bugs return to the plants and soil and brings in more animals and other bugs. The bugs and animals aerate the soil and play a role in the ecology as well. Everything that dies returns something to the soil and plays a part in the next round. Nothing is “grown” on Betsy’s farm and nothing is removed. She just works with the soil and lets the rest happen naturally. She will tell you the fastest way to get rid of “weeds” is to stop calling them weeds. There are no such things as pests. The entire farm is a living, harmonious ecosystem that perpetuates its own richness.
When cows are introduced into this environment, they have a literal feast of nutrient dense plants to choose from. Remarkably, they instinctually know which plants will provide certain nutrients and medicines. When combined with herbal knowledge, there are remarkable instances of cows specifically targeting plants that are traditionally used for certain ailments that the cows possess. Proper nutrition and the abundance provided by a thriving ecosystem create an incredibly healthy animal. This benefits us since all of these nutrients are passed on to us. To ensure the highest quality of her meat, Betsy’s cows are raised on that land, finished on that land, and slaughtered humanely without ever being fattened on corn or injected with water, hormones, or any type of pharmaceutical. Once you have had her beef and seen where it lives, nothing else will even come close. I hear “grass fed” from many farmers, but none take the full picture of the animal’s environment into account when considering the quality of their product quite like Betsy.
The most inspiring part of visiting Betsy’s farm is the energy of the place. I know I may lose some of you here, but it’s the most important part, so hear me out. Betsy has created a place of literal harmony. Everything, every plant, bug and animal is thriving together in a way that makes anyone visiting feel more relaxed, more aware, and a part of that balance. It creates a desire to reconnect and return to a place like that, and to create that balance in your life any way you can. At Beerburg, we are restoring the soil, creating a landscape where native plants and wildlife can thrive, and creating beer and food that capture that energy and pass it on to everyone that visits. It takes time and a lot of work, but if you visit Beerburg, I hope you will feel the restorative efforts we are putting in to the property, are energized from nutrients in our beer and food, and find that subtle peace of mind that isn’t quite definable, but comes from the environment in which you choose to spend your time.
During my last visit, as Betsy described her efforts to shift how people view their land and the role the soil has to play, she humbly stated that she is trying to change the world, followed by a laugh and a “why not?”.