NEWS
BILL GATES FOLLOWS SINGAPORE TO DEVELOP A BEER BREWED FROM SEWAGE
By Tony Zhu
23-6-2023
Source: Epic Cleantec
A California start-up backed by American billionaire Bill Gates, co-founder of Microsoft, is following Singapore government’s footstep in developing a beer made from treated sewage water.
The Bill and Melissa Gates Charitable Foundation gave a grant to Epic Cleantec in 2012, as part of the “Reinvent The Toilet” challenge. The idea was to spur development into water reuse and conservation.
Epic Cleantec recently told broadcaster CNBC that it has produced a test beer, Epic OneWater Brew, which is made from wastewater.
In an experiment, Epic Cleantec fed wastewater from a large San Francisco apartment block through ultrafiltration membranes 100 times thinner than a human hair.
They filter out impurities and the cleaned water is then disinfected by using ultra-violet light.
Epic Cleantec’s co-founder Aaron Tartakovsky told CNBC: “We are trying to amplify the water story to tell it in a different way, and we are using the medium of beer to tell that
story.”
He claimed that independent testing of their cleaned water shows it meets USA Federal standards for drinking water and often exceeds them.
The treated water was then passed to Devil’s Canyon Brewing Co in San Carlos California, which produced the Epic OneWater Brew.
However, strict federal and individual US state laws mean that Epic and Devil’s Canyon are prohibited from selling their Epic OneWater beer.
Changes in the law to allow the brew to be made for sale may be some way away, but already recycled water is permitted in taps in Texas and Arizona.
California, Colorado and Florida are formulating regulations about turning recycled sewage water into something suitable for public consumption.
In Singapore, its national water agency has launched a blonde ale called NewBrew from sewage water last year.
Produced in partnership with local craft brewer Brewerkz, 95 percent of the water used in making NewBrew is NEWater, a purified liquid made from sewage which is the product of one of Singapore’s strategies to face its water scarcity challenges in the past 20 years.
The water agency claims that NewBrew is one of the greenest beers. It also lists NEWater as a main ingredient in an attempt to raise awareness of water scarcity in Singapore.
Brewerkz describes the beer as a modern blonde ale with a distinct fragrance that leaves a smooth, toasted honey-like aftertaste, and said it is a highly quaffable beer that is perfect for Singapore's tropical climate.
(the writer can be contacted at: info@thewinechronicle.com)
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