Craft Brewery Recycles Toilet Water
Craft Breweries use a lot of water to make their beer: they use water to irrigate barley and hops and to process their beer. On average, North American breweries use seven gallons of water to make one gallon of beer. To lessen this burden, a handful of breweries have experimented with treated wastewater to make beer.
A Canadian brewery called Village Brewery has become the latest to make a batch of beer using this method. They just released a blonde ale that was made with treated municipal wastewater from the University of Calgary. The brewery worked with the university to help bring attention to the water security issues.
Reusing wastewater isn’t a new idea. Water-stressed communities throughout the Southwest have been using treated wastewater as tap water for decades. In addition, irrigating crops with treated wastewater is the wave of the future, according to the USDA. Treated wastewater, or what’s known as ‘reclaimed water,’ is an important source of water to tap into as water resources tighten due to mismanagement, overuse and reduced supplies due to climate change impacts.
In order to become drinkable, wastewater goes through multistage treatment processes with a lot of controls and monitoring. The same processes are applied to water used for brewing craft beer, and there is no change in taste.
Would you drink craft beer made with treated wastewater?