The world is experiencing a water crisis. And many companies have been trying for years to persuade authorities and citizens of an obvious solution: consuming recycled water. Countries in extreme situations, such as Namibia and Singapore, have been doing it for some time. But in other geographies it has been a hard sell even though, with the technology that has been available for years, recycled wastewater can be purer and safer from a sanitary point of view than the drinking water delivered to cities.

Several U.S. cities have wastewater treatment plants that deliver high-quality water. But consumer prejudice - and in some cases the political use of some initiatives to reuse it as drinking water - have made it impossible to close the loop. In some cities its use is reduced to irrigating parks and golf courses. In other places, honoring the saying that out of sight, out of mind, they are used to recharge aquifers from which water is extracted for drinking water treatment plants or are directly discharged into watercourses, some of which are, in turn, the source of drinking water systems downstream.

How can these prejudices be overcome? For some experts in the field, serving recycled water as a component of a beer may be the beginning of the solution, serving recycled water as a component of a beer may be the beginning of the solution to the problem.. This is what the Canadian company H2O Innovation Inc. did together with the Watereuse Association, which, in collaboration with the Fox City craft brewery in Georgia, launched a beer that was offered for tasting during the 2023 Watereuse Symposium, held last March. "If you offer people a glass of recycled water, one out of two is going to turn it down," Guillaume Clairet, COO of H2O Innovation, told Bloomberg. "But if you offer them beer made from recycled water, nine out of 10 will agree to try it."

This particular beer, a lager by the name of Revival, is brewed with water obtained from a plant that is part of a pilot project that has been operating for three years under the responsibility of the La Vírgenes Water District, on the outskirts of Los Angeles. A portion - some four million liters per day - of the wastewater treated at the complex is delivered to a demonstration plant where it undergoes further purification processes, resulting in water that meets drinking water standards.

It's not the first time beer has been brewed with recycled water, and some activists think it's a good way to start a conversation on the subject. In any case, Revival was a sales success. Fox City put it on its menu and sold out of its entire stock in April, according to Bloomberg.