https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BybcTILSNZ8
California is home to countless microbreweries that churn out millions of barrels of beer every year. While they’re enjoying a frosty brew, most people don’t realize how much water is used to make all those delicious suds.
To find an innovative way to significantly decrease the amount of water used in brewing beer. Urban Roots Brewery & Smokehouse partnered with Sacramento’s Regional Water Authority (RWA) and California’s Department of Water Resources (DWR).
Press Secretary Ashley Williams recently visited the brewery and hosted a conversation with Peter Hoey of Urban Roots Brewery & Smokehouse, Amy Talbot of RWA, and Kris Tjernell of DWR about the project. Hoey explained the intricate process of brewing beer and how water is used to chill the beer before it is fermented. This step is necessary to preserve the yeast, but this is where a great deal of water is used. By installing a cold-water tank, they could chill the beer faster, using less water to achieve the same thermal absorption.
How much water is this going to save? Around 66,000 gallons of water per year. To put that number into perspective, that’s “530,000 pints of beer per year, or 10.6 million pints of beer over the lifetime of the project’s 20 years,” explained Talbott.
This project was made possible by DWR’s grant funding and RWA’s rebate program for water-intensive industries. Collaborations like this are a great step in making water conservation the California way of life.
Watch the full interview here and visit saveourwater.com for more tips and resources on water conservation. Save Our Water is California’s statewide water conservation program. Co-managed by the Office of Community Partnerships and Strategic Communications and the Department of Water Resources, the program aims to make water conservation a California way of life.
