An iconic Vermont brewery says it has found an environmentally friendly way to help a local cannabis operation grow bigger, better weed. The Alchemist in Stowe — home of Heady Topper — has started shipping captured carbon dioxide to Vermont Medicine Man Craft Cannabis in Marshfield. Cult ivator Justin Kuehnel then pipes the troublesome brewing byproduct into his grow room. "I'm growing bigger buds than I've ever grown in my life," Kuehnel said. "We're pretty thrilled with it." In addition to alcohol, the fermentation process creates copious amounts of the climate-warming gas when yeast gobbles up sugars. All breweries create CO2, but it turns out the Alchemist's yeast is particularly gassy. "We've always had a problem, so to speak, with our yeast being so aggressive that it was making messes," said Shane Rumrill, the brewery's creative director. The solution was to install a sophisticated system to capture and reuse the gas, which would normally just be vented into the environment. The brewery uses most of the captured gas to carbonate its beers and to sanitize cans before they're filled with Heady Topper, Focal Banger and other popular brews. But even after reusing the gas, they have extra and sought to put it to a good use. Kuehnel told Seven Days he was super stoked to get some free CO2 from his favorite brewery and said it's doing wonders for his cash crop. Indoor-grown weed loves CO2, especially during the flowering season, Kuehnel said. He's long had to buy the gas to help him get the best possible bud, but the bottled "beer farts" from his pals at the Alchemist have helped him take his grows to another level. His grow rooms now smell like Heady Topper, and while he's not claiming his weed will be IPA-infused, he figures there's gotta be some alchemy at work. "I really believe that the [beer] energy ... is being put into the CO2 that we're using here, and it's putting positive energy into our plants," Kuehnel said. The original print version of this article was headlined "Buds Helping Buds" … ...read more read less