Earth week: Craft brewers aim to use less water

Apr 18, 2016 | Life

By HumberNews

Jess Reyes

Ontario craft brewers have a good reason to celebrate Earth Week from April 18 -24.

The Bloom Centre for Sustainability is working with the many microbreweries in the province to help them find ways of reducing their use of water.

“We’re all aware of protecting our water use, resources, our great lakes to make sure that we have a very general sense of clean air, clean water, clean land,” said Kevin Jones, CEO of Bloom.

Bloom will be celebrating the success of the craft beer industry at Steam Whistle Brewery on Wednesday, April 20.

Jones said the company will also launch a new Water & Beer platform to assist brewers with ways to manage their water resources.

“Use no more than you need,” said Jones, pointing out that some brewers might use 10 lires or more of water to make just one litre of beer. “The breweries out there doing a good job would probably be in the three or  five litres of water to produce a litre of craft beer,” Jones said.

Steam Whistle is one of many local brewers taking the environmental route for brewing beers.

The brewery’s has shown it’s commitment to sustainability with a webpage dedicated to their green initiatives.

Courtesy photo Steam Whistle.

Photo courtesy Steam Whistle.

Sybil Taylor, director of communications at Steam Whistle, said the company has been brewing for nearly 16 years and is continuing to find ways to improve the brewery process.

“We only use about five-and-a-half litres of water for every one litre of beer that is produced,” Taylor said. 

Taylor also said the quality of water going down the drain is just as important as the amount of water used in beer production. 

“Water is a fluid product that morphs into different uses, and almost like a continuous change,” she said.

Jones said Bloom has worked with Steam Whistle and nearly 35 brewers in Ontario, assisting them with the monitoring of waste water.

For more information about the upcoming event, visit the link below.