Why This Overlooked Ingredient Has a Huge Effect on Beer

Even though there is no beer without clean, fresh water, it’s the most ignored ingredient by drinkers. 

Each time a new brewery is constructed, the first thing owners do is make sure there’s access to a water source — without it, we’d just be chewing on the other ingredients.  Clean water isn’t easy to come by. As we’ve seen in recent years, cities and governments whose job it is to keep water supplies safe are failing. Environmental regulations are being pulled or rolled back, leading to the contamination of water sources around the country. Lakes and rivers are routinely polluted, and the violators are rarely charged or, if they are, even more rarely severely punished. 

Depending on where the brewery is located, brewers might be able to just open the faucet and get down to brewing, so long as the water is complementary to the beer they want to make. Other times it takes more work.

We know that all water doesn’t simply taste like water, and that its taste depends on the location. We can taste the difference between city water, where fluoride has been added, or well water from a country pump that has a lightly cool, iron-metallic taste. Water in coastal regions can have a salinity content. Depending on the location of a brewery, these flavors can come through in the taste of a beer.  

Different styles of beer benefit from different kinds of water. Stouts can benefit from water with high alkalinity; hard water benefits darker lagers; low mineral water is favored by pilsners. The popular hazy IPA benefits from water that has less sulfate and more chloride. 

The gose, with its slightly salty attributes, was developed in Golsar, Germany, where the towns’ water has some salinity. 

Perhaps the most famous brewery town celebrated for its water is Burton upon Trent in the United Kingdom. It’s been home to a multitude of breweries over the centuries, with Bass perhaps being the best-known. The water is high in calcium and magnesium, and low in bicarbonate and sodium. This proved lovely for English pale ales, giving them a distinct taste sought after all over the world. 

How brewers fake water

Today, if a brewery in, say, Tampa, wanted to make a traditional English pale, with the right brewing technology they could be able to bring their local water to a neutral pH, then add various mineral compounds to recreate the flavor and aroma of water found in that central English town. 

It’s the same method that mega brewers — with plants all over the world — use to make tens of millions of barrels of the same beer each year. 

Budweiser, the iconic American lager, is produced in a dozen breweries scattered across the United States. The brand’s reputation depends on each batch tasting exactly like the last one, and for customers to not be able to differentiate one beer from another based on location. 

By controlling and manipulating water, the Bud made in Fort Collins, Colorado tastes just like one from Newark, New Jersey. Whether you like Budweiser or not, this is a technical feat of mastery worth appreciating.

Clean water for better beer

Brewers know that without clean water, they are out of a job. John Kimmich of the Alchemist in Vermont is always eager to show visitors his filtration and wastewater systems.

Many brewers are also activists. There’s a coalition in the Great Lakes that supports keeping those majestic bodies of water as pristine as possible. It’s not only a huge economic driver for those regions but is also where the brewery water comes from. 

Brewers in Alaska have been mindful of oil drilling and worry for parts of the plains where hydraulic fracking is becoming more and more common. In the Pacific Northwest, brewers are pledging to help watersheds that promote salmon health and safety.  

Today’s brewers are using consumer passion to give science and technology companies a chance to test out new ideas and equipment with the goal of cleaner water. Wren House Brewing in Arizona has used cleaned, recycled water to brew beers. They are part of a group of brewers who are working with the National Resources Defense Council (NRDC) to promote clean water and to educate consumers on the harms of waste, and the importance of careful use. 

Years ago, a Massachusetts company pulled 4,000 gallons from the Charles River in Boston, and through reverse osmosis purified it and sent it to brewers to make beer. The results varied from porters to pale ales, but the ultimate reward was proving to consumers that some water can be reclaimed and that we all need to start thinking about not only preventing pollution but also finding ways of fixing the existing problem. 

Water comes in the form of rain, and without that, the next two ingredients would be in serious trouble during the growing season. Just keep that in mind the next time you get caught in a thunderstorm without an umbrella while headed to the bar.