Stone Brewing Sets Record Straight On Reclaimed Water Made Beer

(ESCONDIDO, CA) – Here at Stone Brewing, we’ve been getting a few questions…and a virtual tsunami of media that’s taken a healthy dose of creative liberty…about Stone Full Circle Pale Ale, a beer we brewed with purified reclaimed water to help promote @PureWaterSD at an event last week. We were honored to participate and wanted to make the story of this awesome beer a bit more clear.

Many of the press reports have been laughably inaccurate.  We get the need to write a misleading headline in order to provide clickbait, but freely making up ‘facts’ is a bit much. That behavior should be reserved for politics.

The facts:

• The bottles, cans or kegs of Stone Brewing beer in your fridge or on tap at your local bar were not brewed with reclaimed water.  Not yesterday, not today, and not anywhere in the foreseeable future.  Unfortunately, but it is what it is.
• The only beer we brewed with reclaimed water — Stone Full Circle Pale Ale — was brewed specifically for, and available exclusively at, the Pure Stone event held on March 16 at the Stone Brewing World Bistro & Gardens – Liberty Station.
  • It is no longer available.  It was consumed in a few hours by politicians and VIPs.  Sorry, it was not available to the public.  It was a demonstration of responsible water usage in frequently drought-stricken Southern California.
• The reclaimed water we used in Stone Full Circle Pale Ale was:
  • Cleaner than normal tap water.
  • Allows for a more reliable source of supply.
  • Benefits the environment and community.
  • Reinforces Stone Brewing’s commitments to sustainability and the community.
• No, we are not brewing any of our other beers with reclaimed water. Yes, we said that just three bullet points earlier, but we realize that we live in a short attention span society. OMG. LOL.
• The safe and proven technology is intended to replace up to a third of San Diego’s water with recycled water by 2035.  This puts San Diego solidly in the middle of the pack.  Using this technology is nothing new.  It’s used by regions all over the US, and all over the world.  Don’t worry, journalists using creative-yet-largely-inaccurate headlines and made-up facts in news reports also places them solidly in the middle of the pack as well.  LOL (again).  Sad (the standard of our national discourse…but that’s another story!).
• Our neighbors to the north in Orange County, CA are far ahead of us, and currently using a similar system for their every day drinking water. Bully for them.  They’re setting a good standard for responsibility and what can be done when the community pulls their head out of their…well, you know.
  • You can learn more about the nation’s largest recycling plantexpanding to Orange County or the Orange County Water District.
• The Stone Full Circle Pale Ale was really, really good. So is the rest of our non-reclaimed-water beer we make.
• For the umpteenth time, our name is Stone Brewing, NOT Stone Brewery.  Sheesh already.

We appreciate all the support we’ve received over the past week and especially enjoyed the media and our fans’, ahem, colorful sense of humor. No, really.  A couple of them are actually clever and well written.  We loved James Corden’s take on the whole matter here (skip ahead to 2:40), but we are just a little offended that he would suggest we’d ever make a light lager… asparagus or otherwise!

About Stone
Founded by Greg Koch and Steve Wagner in 1996, the groundbreaking San Diego-based Stone Brewing is the 10th largest craft brewer in the United States. Recognized as an industry leader, Stone has been listed on the Inc. 500 | 5000 Fastest Growing Private Companies list 12 times, has been called the “All-time Top Brewery on Planet Earth” by BeerAdvocate magazine twice, and was named the “Top Rated Brewer in California” by RateBeer Best in January 2017. The multifaceted company is the first American craft brewer to independently build, own and operate their own brewery in Europe (Berlin, Germany), and also opened a production brewery in Richmond, Virginia in 2016. Known for its bold, flavorful and largely hop-centric beers, Stone has earned a reputation for brewing outstanding, unique beers while maintaining an unwavering commitment to sustainability, business ethics, philanthropy and the art of brewing…and pledging never, ever, to sell out to the man. For more information on Stone Brewing, please visit stonebrewing.com or the company’s social media sites: Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter and The Stone Blog.