How Columbus water helps breweries make better beer
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Enjoying a local beverage on National Beer Day? Take a moment to consider the most important ingredient in Columbus beer: our water.
Why it matters: Beer is over 90% water, and Columbus gives brewmasters — from small craft breweries to massive distributors — a big advantage.
State of play: We've cultivated a reputation as a beer city thanks to the dozens of craft breweries that make their home in Central Ohio.
- But our biggest contribution to the beer world is still the 138-acre Anheuser-Busch plant on the north side, capable of producing 10 million barrels a year.
Flashback: Long before the craft beer boom, or even Anheuser-Busch's arrival, Columbus was on the cutting edge of clean municipal water.
- In the early 20th century, "The Columbus Experiment" was the first water plant to combine filtration and water softening.
- Later construction of the 3,000-acre Hoover Reservoir — named for influential Columbus waterworks brothers Charles and Clarence Hoover — gave Columbus the ability to store 20.8 billion gallons.
Today, we continue to have among the cleanest and most easily usable water for brewers in the country.
- Our complex treatment process includes adding ozone, biologically active filters and disinfecting with UV light.
- Division of Water administrator John Newsome says the system is "one of a handful" in the nation.
By the numbers: The system produces 55 billion gallons of drinking water annually, flowing through more than 8,000 miles of water and sewer lines.
- A $1.6 billion fourth plant is in progress to meet increasing demand and Central Ohio growth.
Behind the scenes: In Columbus brewhouses, all that hard work matters.
- "It certainly makes our lives as brewers a lot easier," Columbus Brewing Company co-owner and brewmaster Eric Bean tells Axios.
Zoom out: Bean says brewers in other parts of the country, especially the West Coast, need to treat water with reverse osmosis and add mineral content to make it usable for their beer.
- All CBC needs to do is run water through a filter to remove chlorine.
The bottom line: The next time you drink a beloved Columbus-brewed beer or even a glass of tap water, appreciate the century of hard work that went into cleaning it.
- "The quality of the water for us as brewers is super important, and I think that's why you have brewers advocating for it," Bean says. "But it's also a social thing for our community — we all need good, fresh drinking water."