From Seed To Sip – Anheuser-Busch Celebrates World Water Day

Celebrations at Anheuser-Busch typically call for a raised a glass of beer, but coming on March 22, we will be raising a glass in honor of World Water Day and our strides to conserve more water while making the same, quality beers our customers expect.

Water is a critical ingredient in the brewing process as well as a critical resource to communities across the globe, so we take great care to conserve and manage its use from “Seed to Sip.”

Water conservation begins with barley. Approximately 90 percent of the water used during the entire brewing process occurs in the process of growing the key ingredients for beer. With the help of our Fort Collins, Colorado, Seed Research facility and our network of growers, we have introduced varieties of barley that use up to 40 percent less water while still giving our beer that quality taste.

Not far down the road from our Seed Research facility, the Fort Collins brewery is making landmark strides in water conservation with efforts led by Aaron Mortensen, environmental, health and safety manager, and other brewery employees. “We use a two-pronged approach to both reduce use and also reclaim and reuse water whenever possible,” explains Mortensen. These measures have contributed to achieving a 21 percent water reduction across our U.S. breweries in the past five years, and will continue as the Fort Collins’ brewery aims for a local goal of reducing use by an additional 3 percent in 2015.

As California continues to face drought conditions, our L.A. brewery is doing its part when it comes to water saving methods, both inside and outside the brewery. Environmental manager, Erica Nord, resident engineer, Mike Carlson and the entire L.A. team are proud to have contributed to drought relief on behalf of the community.

“Through our employees’ ideas and hard work, our brewery reduced water use by 9 percent, on top of the 31 percent water reduction we have achieved since 2009,” said Nord. And if you happened to be curious about the brewery’s new look of artificial turf landscape and rock gardens, Nord explains, “that change alone reduces our water needs by up to 5 million gallons per year.”

All these projects and water savings are receiving attention from others too. Earlier this year, the LA brewery was named California Water Environment Association’s as Facility of the Year.

Efforts to protect water at Anheuser-Busch extend far beyond our brewery walls as thousands of our employees volunteer in our local communities projects to help clean and protect watersheds. With 5,400 native trees and grasses planted and 20,000 pounds of trash removed by 1,300 volunteers in 2013, we’re contributing to making our local watershed healthier than they have been in years.

With water being a critical element for our company, our work to conserve even more water from Seed to Sip is on track this year. By setting higher goals and supporting projects from the local to global level, we continue to find ways to reduce and manage water use, while brewing the best beer in the world.