Talking Head: Rainwater beer production shut down at 5 Seasons
5 Seasons Westside has been ordered to cease the use of recycled rainwater for brewing beer until regulators can determine how to regulate it.
The nifty rainwater collection system that 5 Seasons Brewing Company installed at their Westside brewpub location in September attracted plenty of attention. Apparently CNN saw my Talking Head story on it and decided to run their own short feature.
Unfortunately, the story also got the attention of various local, state, and federal regulators, who whipped out their statute books to find that there are no guidelines for the use of rainwater in beer, so therefore it must be illegal.
“We weren’t thinking about hiding it, because we had no idea it would be a problem,” says brewer Crawford Moran. “The system produces ‘potable water,’ which is the standard for commercial applications, but that doesn’t necessarily translate to a brewpub, because there’s no regulating authority.”
The system, installed by RainHarvest Systems of Cumming, Georgia, has been used in commercial operations before, and the 6-stage filtration system filters down to 0.5 microns, followed by a UV filter that kills bacteria. It produces water so pure that the University of Georgia Soil and Water Laboratory, the certified lab that tested the sample from 5 Seasons, fairly gushed about it in its normally staid scientific assessment. No matter. The brewery could have dug a well on the site of the former stockyard without even having the water tested.