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How Firestone Walker saves 28+ million liters of water per year

High water risks in California? The Firestone Walker brewery keeps investing to improve water efficiency. “Quite a few of the investments we make indeed concern water,” says CEO Nick Firestone. “For example, since 2023 we’ve been sourcing water from nearby Lake Nacimiento, which requires less treatment than the municipal water we used in the past. That helps us save around 28 million liters each year. Then we invested in anaerobic and aerobic ponds to treat wastewater, and we installed an amazing system that recovers valuable yeast and beer and, as such, water! Together, these efforts lead to impressive water savings and a more sustainable brewing process.”

The yeast beer recovery system helps us save an annual 1.9 million liters of water, more than what an average US brewery produces in one year.

Looking ahead, Nick and his team are working on an ambitious project to close the water loop entirely. A smart system will treat the effluent water and return it directly to an aquifer for irrigation, rather than sending it to the city’s wastewater treatment plant. He expects the installation to be up and running in 2026.