Get Wasted! Sewer Beer In The Czech Republic

Sustainably is the ‘it’ word and concept nowadays. But will the public really embrace beer brewed from sewer water?

Here’s the deal…

“A small brewery in the South Bohemian village of Čížová has produced the Czech Republic’s first beer made from recycled, purified wastewater,” according to Radio Praha.

ERKO 12, which made its debut at the annual water management exhibition at Prague’s Letňany, is the result of a joint effort with water company Veolia and the Čížová Brewery.

The result is described as a “typical Czech unpasteurized lager” (hardly a rave) brewed with Czech hops and malt as well as water from the Prague sewage treatment plant.

The water used in ERKO 12 was processed by Veolia using membrane technology and activated carbon and the good news is it doesn’t taste like piss.

In the broadcast, Čížová Brewery Head Brewer explained why he took on the challenge of making the country’s first wastewater beer…

“I know that somebody in the United States has already tried brewing beer from recycled water, so it was a very interesting challenge for me to be the first in the Czech Republic to try it. That is why we decided to brew this beer.”

According to Ondřej Beneš is the commercial director at Veolia, which runs the Prague water sewage treatment plant many breweries are already “using similar technologies for treating water, just not water that comes directly from a wastewater plant…

“We wanted to prove that by using the most appropriate membrane methods we can meet the strict norms set by the health authorities. This is evidence that we are able to make potable water out of wastewater.”

In 2017 Stone Brewing made headlines when they also successfully brewed a small batch of ale with wastewater.

And in 2018 Stockholm’s Nya Carnegiebryggeriet (a Carlsberg brewing facility that’s actually operated by Brooklyn Brewery), and the Swedish Environmental Research Institute debuted PU:REST a beer they developed together brewed with recycled waste water.

But unlike PU:REST, which was released commercially, the Čížová Brewery plans to continue producing its ‘sewer beer’ only for special occasions.