Recently, locals have been noticing something different about the way that their cocktails and cold brews arrive across the bar. As the city’s food and drink scene continues to become more sustainable—ditching Styrofoam, and plastic straws and six-pack rings—Monument City Brewing in Highlandtown is strengthening its own environmental ethos with a new beer series dedicated to cleaning up our waterways, parks, and streets.

“It’s always been part of our core values to get involved in our community and give back where we can,” says Monument City co-founder Ken Praay. “It’s about more than just creating a cool community space here. We want to keep the city in mind and make the neighborhoods where we live, work, and play clean and enjoyable.”

Monument City’s commitment to the environment has been on display previously at large-scale events like Light City and Artscape, where Praay worked closely with the Baltimore Office of Promotion & The Arts to add accessible recycling and garbage collection systems throughout the festival footprints.

Now, the brewery is continuing that mission with its three-part Haven series. A portion of all proceeds from limited-release double IPAs will be donated to local environmental organizations Blue Water Baltimore, which works to restore the quality of the city’s rivers, streams, and harbor, and Trash Free Maryland—a nonprofit focused on preventing garbage pollution throughout the state.

The campaign was largely inspired by Monument City’s sales manager Jack Obermaier, an avid litter collector who recently joined the board of Trash Free Maryland.

“I do a lot of trash cleanups in my neighborhood, and I think it’s frustrating when you go out the next day and the area is just as littered as it was before,” Obermaier says. “We really want to increase awareness and hopefully work toward a day where we don’t have to do as many cleanups.”

The team debuted the first of the three beers, a West Coast-style IPA called Waterways, earlier this month. Praay says that the brewing process was meant to reflect the mission of Blue Water Baltimore: “It’s not a hazy style,” he says. “We purposefully wanted to make it as crystal clear as we could to reflect the idea of clear water.”

The second beer, Greenspaces, will be a juicier New England-style double IPA brewed with a higher hop presence to pay homage to its name. Its release will coincide with a city-wide trash pickup on September 8, which Trash Free Maryland and Blue Water Baltimore are organizing in partnership with the Brewer’s Association of Maryland.

From 9 a.m. to noon, eight breweries across the city will be leading cleanups in their neighborhoods and rewarding volunteers with post-parties at their taprooms. Participating spots include Waverly, Union Craft, Peabody Heights, The Brewer’s Art, Charm City Meadworks, Oliver Brewing, Checkerspot Brewing, and Monument City.

“I really love that there are so many breweries sharing this information across the board,” Obermaier says. “We all have pretty large audiences, and together, there are a lot of people that we can touch to make a big change.”

In October, Monument City will unveil the third and final beer of the Haven series, Roadways, which will use the brewery’s flagship 51 Rye as a base: “We thought that the balance between the citrus and that spicy rye played well with the idea of roadways,” Praay says. “It’s a harder working beer.”

The can art for each of the brews, produced by local graphic design studio White Coffee Lettering, features maps of the city that highlight each of the causes. Obermaier hopes that the cans themselves will serve as conversation starters to get more patrons on board with the sustainable mission.

“We want to do everything we can to protect the city and keep it clean,” he says. “And I think you can see that in the cans. When you look at them, it makes you think of how we’re all connected in different ways.”

As the largest free outdoor arts festival in the country, Artscape will be once again painting the streets this July, with a color palette that’s overwhelmingly green.

In its 37th year, the free festival is making considerable sustainable efforts. Its agenda is threefold, according to Kathy Hornig, Baltimore Office of Promotion and the Arts’ (BOPA) festival director, as these environmentally friendly efforts will be seen in its food and drink operations, transportation options, and visual arts exhibits.

For the first time, attendees can sip drinks through paper straws, as all BOPA vendors will be stocked with them and the remaining food stalls will be highly encouraged to do the same.

The initiative complements the successful ban of Styrofoam products among vendors, which the festival started two years ago, Hornig said.

“We were ahead of the curve on that one,” she added. Since then, the independent nonprofit Trash Free Maryland has led a bill to ban polystyrene foam in Baltimore. The organization works to create legislative and policy-driven initiatives to combat trash pollution.

“Often times, there’s something you can do—not in addition to—but differently,” said Ashley Van Stone, executive director of Trash Free Maryland. “Like using a different material.”

Along with using eco-friendly material, BOPA is partnering with Monument City Brewing Company to streamline recycling efforts, piggybacking off their partnership from Light City. The brewery will provide about 50 clearly labeled recycling containers.

With an estimated volume of 350,000 attendees, preventing trash pollution was a priority. The receptacles will help outline how to separate materials and make it easier to sort trash out.

“I think the Artscape attendees want to support sustainability,” Hornig said. “They just need clear, visible units to make that happen. With the addition of these assets, we find the crowd is as into being sustainable as we are.”

In line with celebrating Baltimore’s own sustainability efforts, Artscape will also make use of the new permanent bike lanes up Mount Royal Avenue. Starting this year, BOPA will have free pedicab rides going up and down the hill.

“It’s completely human-powered, sustainable pedicabs—a free way to get up and down the hill,” Hornig said. “We’re hoping that festival goers will use those to maybe see something at Artscape they haven’t seen before.”

Up at the top of Mount Royal, the festival features local bands, food vendors, and indoor art venues. Its footprint is “symbolic” of the culture Baltimore has to offer, including local sustainability practices.

“Whatever the best practices are for our city in general, festivals should try to accommodate those,” Hornig said. “As a showcase and celebration of everything that makes our city great, sustainability efforts should certainly be a part of that.”

Looking at Artscape festivals to come in the years ahead, the team hopes to continuously add more environmentally conscious efforts.

“We would like to just keep doing a better job year after year,” Hornig said. “We’re interested in the possibilities of solar power for some of our temporary power moving forward. We just want to continue to do the good work.”