CHARLOTTE, N.C. —  A water department, a water technology provider and a brewery have come together to create a first-of-its-kind beer in North Carolina.

What You Need To Know

  •  Renew Brew is a pale ale made from recycled water

  •  Town Brewing Co., Charlotte Water and Xylem partnered to make the beer 

  •  Initially, it was only available at special events, but now it's in stores

The project, Renew Brew, which is made from recycled water, is centered on sustainability. 

Town Brewing Co. is brewing this pale ale, which received a high praise from the start. 

“When we first debuted the beer at the Queen City Brewers Festival, it won best in show in a blind taste testing,” Town Brewing Director of Operations Brandon Stirewalt said. 

This beer is one-of-a-kind, made from recycled water from a Charlotte wastewater treatment plant. Town Brewing partnered with Charlotte Water and Xylem, a global water technology provider, to bring it to life. 

“We were able to run and do what we do well, just with a water source that is unique,” Stirewalt said. 

The water is double-treated, first by Charlotte Water and then by Xylem. 

“Every customer’s wastewater comes to one of our wastewater treatment plants, goes through a thorough process there. But instead of putting it back into the river, what we do is we take it one step farther, recycle it and filter it just a little bit more, and then it's clean, crisp water that Town can turn into brewing,” Charlotte Water public affairs manager Jennifer Frost said. 

Stirewalt said the recycled water passed over 150 lab tests. 

“The water was actually so clean that we back added some mineral content to it to get the water profile that we wanted for brewing,” Stirewalt said. 

During the first public tasting of the beer in April, a customer gave it a thumbs up.

“It’s amazing. I was absolutely locked in. I love the beer. I love the sustainability factor of it,” Michael Johnson said. 

Stirewalt said it takes five gallons of water to make one gallon of beer.

“We use water for a heating source. We use water in the product and, as I said, we’ll have some loss in that and we use water in cleaning as well,” Stirewalt said. 

For this brewery, the project combines their focus on sustainability and helping better the community. 

“Hopefully being the first in Carolinas to ever do this project, maybe we can help the Carolinas never see a water crisis because we are doing cutting-edge things,” Stirewalt said. 

The treated water goes through a long process before becoming beer, including reverse osmosis and carbon filtration. 

Earlier this year, Renew Brew was only available at special events, but now is for sale in Greensboro, Winston-Salem, Raleigh, Asheville and the Charlotte area.