This Swedish Brewery Is Turning Sewage Water Into Beer

The world’s kind of sort of running out of fresh drinkable water. *Cue intense music* with industries after households drying up sources, every other avenue to save the life-giving liquid is welcome. Even if that means making sewage drinkable. Wait, what?!

Inspired by the Swedish Environmental Research Institute (IVL), a Swedish brewery called the New Carnegie Brewery, which is partly owned by Carlsberg, recently teamed up with an innovative sewage treatment plant to brew beer from sewage water. Now, unless you’re a hardcore environmentalist or don’t know what sewage water means, this is not exactly news that can make one happy. Nevertheless, it’s happening.

Christened ‘Pu:rest’ (oh, the irony!), the beer will have an alcohol content of 4.8 percent and will be made from thoroughly purified – thank god – sewage water, which would have gone through “a chain of purification stages” and tested well before being sent off to the brewery. However, the biggest hurdle isn’t the purification, it’s getting people to accept that the water, is in fact purified and drinkable.

“The difficulties in getting this relatively cost- and energy-efficient method to be used for the production of drinking water is not technical but primarily emotional. The recycled water is as pure and safe as normal tap water, but most people are still skeptical about actually drinking purified wastewater,” Staffan Filipsson, project manager at IVL, said.

Described as “an ecological and crystal clear pilsner, brewed on recycled water with organic malt and hops”, by the brewery’s head, Chris Thurgeson, the environment-friendly beer serves a major purpose of shining the spotlight on the mounting issue of sustainable water management and raise awareness of the global water issues and the value of clean water, Filipsson said.

The beer, which is being referred to as ‘crap beer’, will be served in several restaurants and at festivals in June, the IVL said. Would you dare to try one? Let us know in the comments below!

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