Breweries in Your Backyard: A Water and Wastewater Partnership

The U.S. brewing industry has expanded dramatically over the past four decades, during which the number of breweries in the U.S. has grown from less than 100 to over 6,000, according to the Brewers Association (BA). BA data for 2017 indicate that only about 1% of these breweries are larger, factory-style facilities, such as those owned by the large, multinational brewing companies, and that just under 4% are smaller “regional” breweries. The remaining 95% are smaller microbrewery and brewpub operations that often fit into the space of a storefront or small warehouse.Historically, the management and staff operating breweries in the U.S. have had educational and technical backgrounds in brewing and related fields, including water and wastewater. Newer regional breweries also tend to be more sophisticated with regard to water supply and wastewater treatment, though they may lack the depth of experience that the larger, older breweries have in these areas, depending on the specific backgrounds of those operating a specific brewery.In comparison, those starting and running microbreweries and brewpubs in the current “craft beer explosion” come from many types of backgrounds. They generally recognize the importance of brewing-specific education, training, and experience to their success, and this education, training, and experience does generally include exposure to water and wastewater topics. However, unless a brewer has a background or takes a special interest in water and wastewater, this exposure typically does not extend far beyond the boundaries of the brewery itself. Lacking specific knowledge and experience about how water gets to the brewery and how wastewater is treated after it leaves, brewers often find it difficult to navigate the intricacies of water supplies and wastewater treatment.Since availability of high-quality water and adequate treatment capacity for brewery wastewater is critical to a brewery’s success, it is important for brewers to understand how their water suppliers and wastewater utilities operate and what concerns the utilities have about the brewery’s operation. A brewer should seek to learn about where their water comes from, what factors affect its quality (including variable) sources, and what they can expect from their suppliers in terms of communication. At the very least, a visit to their water’s source/treatment facility and regular meetings with their water supplier should be made. Similarly, regardless of the permitting arrangement under which the brewery operates, brewers should seek to educate themselves about what happens to their wastewater after it leaves their facility, from pump stations all the way to the final point of discharge. A visit to the “end of the line”, where wastewater is reclaimed and discharged, is a must. An understanding of the regulatory environment surrounding wastewater discharges, especially standard sewer use ordinances, is also critical for brewers. Furthermore, any internal changes which are likely to affect wastewater characteristics, such as process changes or expansions, should be communicated by the brewery to the wastewater utility.Interestingly, dealing with breweries can also be a challenge for local water suppliers and wastewater treatment system operators, who are accustomed to residential, commercial, and even industrial customers, but not necessarily breweries. In order to understand these challenges, utilities with breweries as customers should seek to understand the nature of brewery water use and wastewater generation. Although it is not expected for water utilities to be experts in brewing where water and wastewater are concerned, knowing their customers’ specific water quality requirements and sources of wastewater allow them to understand the effects of variations in water quality and factors affecting wastewater characteristics.Put simply, water is the single largest raw material in beer, typically comprising about 80% of the mass that directly enters the brewing process (not including packaging materials). Therefore, its quality and the reliability with which it can be delivered is of critical importance to the finished product. Beyond its simple acceptability as drinking water, the water’s mineral content and other physical properties have tremendous influence on the beer itself. In fact, many traditional styles of beer, such as pilsner, English pale ale, and stout owe much of their character to the properties of the water in their regions of origin. Modern breweries are able to tailor incoming water to the specific styles of beer being brewed, sometimes even using reverse osmosis as a means to create a “clean slate” from which to work, but consistency in water properties from the start is still of great importance. Even what are seen as minor variations in water properties can have a tremendous effect on the consistency of the beer produced. Since consumers demand a consistent product year in and year out, consistency in the water supply is critical to a brewery’s ongoing success. This is especially true of the smaller operations, who usually rely on the quality of the public water supply with minimal mineral additions and cannot always afford extensive water analysis and treatment.At the other end of the brewery, wastewater is generated in relatively large proportions. Overall water efficiency in a brewery is typically expressed as the ratio of volume of water brought into the brewery to the volume of beer shipped from the brewery. This ratio generally varies by brewery size and, according to the BA, ranges from about 35 for the smallest breweries to about 4 (and often less) for the larger breweries. This wastewater tends to be high-strength (Biological Oxygen Demand [BOD] from 5,000 to 10,000), intermittently-produced (reflecting the batch nature of the brewing and packaging process), and varying in temperature and pH over the course of a production period. Fortunately, brewery wastewater also tends to be relatively easy to treat in conventional wastewater treatment processes. For the smallest brewing operations, the total organic load to a wastewater treatment plant tends to be insignificant to a large treatment works; however, its high strength and intermittent nature can still present issues to smaller service areas, especially those experiencing a high growth rate of brewery customers relative to the more-stable contribution from residential and commercial customers. Complicating this situation is the fact that these small dischargers must adhere to standard sewer use ordinances, which often have concentration limits that the brewer must make extra effort to meet, regardless of total mass loadings.Water conservation and brewery growth are additional important factors in how a brewery operates in this setting. Though the increase in water use is not linear with production volume growth, a brewery will require more water as it grows, and water suppliers should be aware of this when planning for overall community water needs. Water conservation and efficiency improvements have the effect of increasing the concentration of wastewater, though mass loadings tend to stay consistent. Growth both increases overall mass loading and concentrations.In a grand sense, water and wastewater are no different to a brewery than malt, hops, and spent grain: all are raw materials and byproducts. Breweries work closely with raw materials suppliers and those who manage their byproducts, such as farmers; water suppliers and wastewater utilities are no different. Establishing and maintaining open and effective communication and relationships between water utilities, brewery operators, and wastewater utilities enhances all of these operations and helps to remove barriers to growth for the brewing industry while maintaining the reliability of water supplies and wastewater treatment capability for all customers.