Wastewater beer - 1st December 2023

The west of the USA doesn't have enough water. This has forced people to find better ways to use wastewater. Two companies in San Francisco have created technology to recycle a building's wastewater and make it into beer. One of the companies is Epic Cleantec. Its CEO, Aaron Tartakovsky, is impressed with the quality of the beer.

Aaron Tartakovsky: "It tastes like a nice, crisp, Kölsch style ale. You'd have no idea the source of the water. It's just nice, pristine drinking water and it's a fantastic beer. And I'm going to drink another sip."

The wastewater is collected and filtered. After this, it's then purified by UV light. Finally, chlorine is added.

Most of this recycled water flows back into the skyscraper's water system but some is sent to Devil's Canyon Brewery. At first, the brewery owner Chris Garrett was uncertain about the idea of making beer with wastewater. But he's decided that it's a good way to manage the water shortage.

Chris Garrett: "When Aaron reached out to us at first we were a little set aside, and we were like, well what are people kind of think? And then the more we thought about it, it made a whole lot of sense. And we, we have to make a change today. We're running out of water and we need to find a way to incorporate that into every day and things like beer."

It's illegal to sell wastewater beer in California. Instead, the two companies are giving away the beer.

Many Americans don't like the idea of drinking wastewater. But California's running out of water. So, state officials would like more buildings to start using the technology soon.

Tartakovsky's positive that the public is ready to support the use of recycled water.

Aaron Tartakovsky: "When I first entered the industry, a lot of people said that the public is just not ready for recycled water, that public perception is too difficult for people to overcome. And I think what our beer project has showed people is that the public is a lot more ready for recycled water than we give them credit for."