Water In Brewing:
It Runs Deeper Than You Think BY DAVID NUTTALL
“Try to leave this world a little better than you found it and when your turn comes to die, you can die happy in feeling that at any rate you have not wasted your time but have done your best.” ~ Lord Robert Baden-Powell
In the past couple of years, our planet has seen a massive shift in activity. Whether it’s work, leisure time, travel, or even home life, people's lives have been inexorably changed. Obviously, the arrival of COVID in 2019 has been a major reason for this transformation, but it has also gone far beyond health measures. Whether it is climate change, workplace culture, water management, environmental stewardship, supply chain issues, staffing challenges, e-commerce, or something else, many of these matters have been of interest for decades. The liquor industry has not been
immune to these topics. From the agriculture that provides the ingredients for all alcohol, through the production facilities, to the delivery chain of goods and all points in between, no part of the industry has escaped unscathed. While many factors affect all sectors, some are more prevalent to specific segments of the industry. For instance, distilleries may have supply shortages, from barrels to bottles; restaurants and bars deal with staffing shortfalls and minimizing food waste; while sustainability and climate change are leading issues for wineries. For breweries, water usage is the number one concern. However you slice it, water is the driving force behind brewing. It is the largest component of beer, accounting for about 95 percent of the final product. To get to that point though, it is estimated that as much as 300 litres of water are needed for each litre of beer, when accounting for all the water needed from seed to package. While breweries can't control the agricultural factors (unless they own
their farms), they can manage the water inside their building. While we all think of water as the base of the beer, it is used all throughout the brewery. When including packaging, equipment cleaning, wastewater, utilities, and ancillary usages, like restrooms and food service (if applicable), the water-use ratio (or WUR) of an average brewery twenty years ago used to be around 10:1 for each litre of beer produced. Today, breweries are aiming for ratios of one half to one quarter of that and the improvement has to come from many areas within and outside the brewery. It's apparent by these numbers that breweries use a massive amount of water that doesn't end up in the beer. Most of it is wastewater that heads down the drain and contributes to a large proportion of their environmental impact. In response, the industry is developing techniques that can help minimize this. The simplest way is to monitor, test, and measure water use, such as detecting for leaks, using multiple flow meters, or improving cleaning procedures. June 2022 | Culinaire 27
