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I’m the first to admit that I am not a fan of beer. If I’m drinking, it’s either hard liquor or wine. Occasionally, I can be persuaded to drink a cider beer – alcoholic apple juice? Yes, please – but in general, it’s not my thing. I just don’t like the taste of it; personally, I think it tastes like crap. And apparently, if I’m drinking beer in Oregon, I’m not that far off.
Last year, Oregon’s Clean Water Services, which operates four wastewater treatment plants, sponsored a brewing contest, which challenged beer markers to create beer using recycled water. Recycled WASTE water. So you know, like sewage. A home brewer’s club called the Oregon Brew Crew won the contest with their batch of beer. Despite its beginnings as wastewater, Brew Crew club president Lee Hedgmon told WPVI, “Tastes like beer. Tastes exactly like beer, when it was finished. The water itself takes just like distilled water.” Yeah, but I still know what it started as.
Following the results of contest, last week the Oregon Environmental Quality Commission approved the use of recycled sewage water to brew beer. But thankfully, you don’t have to worry that the beer you are putting in your mouth at a Portland bar had ingredients that come out of another one of your body’s orifices. Despite the approval, waste-water beer will not be available for sale in bars – yet. For now, Clean Water Services plans to give the water to Oregon Brew Crew, the winning home brewing club, which will use it to make small batches to demonstrate the process. The finished product will only be served at tasting events, after testing to make sure it is safe for human consumption.
So the next time you go to say that your beer tastes like shit, keep in mind that one day, it possibly may be made from it..
[Via WPVI]
Image via Shutterstock
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Jenna Crowley
Jenna used to be known as 2NOTBrokeGirls, but then one of the girls actually went broke, so she's struck out on her own. Jenna spends her free time saving the world, one sorority girl at a time (usually while wearing yoga pants), questioning why she decided to get a doctorate, documenting her love of all things cheese related, and hosting the new PGP podcast Don't Take It From Us. You can ask her anything you want about football, using your boobs to get what you want, and pizza at @JennaLCrowley on Twitter or via email at JennaLCrowley@gmail.com.
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But seriously, every drop of water on the planet has probably been consumed and pissed out at some point. Odds are the bottles water I bought this morning was once a steaming yellow puddle under a T-Rex.
Seriously? Not one “shit-faced”, “shit-housed” or “getting shitty” joke? There was so much potential there….
Personally, I was waiting for, “If I wanted to drink a shitty beer I’d drink ____.”
Making beer from sewer water is nothing new… That’s basically how we survived the middle ages. We’ve made basically exactly that at UC Davis to illustrate how the boiling phase in the brewing process can make duck pond water safe to drink. (See How Beer Saved the World)
It’s been around for a while. It’s called Natural Ice. That being said, I’m not above drinking it if it’s the only thing available.