The Huyghe brewery, most well-known for it’s flagship beer Delirium, is now using rainwater as one of the ingredients to brew it’s beers. The rainwater is collected and purified before being used in the beers During the COVID-19 lockdown, the brewer has seen a reduced demand but that didn’t stop them from investing in the brewery. With it’s latest investment a rainwater collection system was added to the brewery for roughly €300,000 (£268,126).
As a result of the reduced demand, the number of trucks driven around the brewery has been reduced drastically, it was the perfect opportunity to invest and optimize the brewery. All rainwater which falls on the roof of the brewery (8,000m² worth of roofs), is now being collected in a drainage system and processed on the brewery site. The purified rainwater is then being used to brew the Hugyhe beers.
With an average rainfall of 800 liters m² per year, the Huyghe brewery expects to recuperate about 3,600 cubic meters of water. That is a lot of water being saved and which can be reused to brew the beers.
Before the investment, the Huyghe brewery was already using ground water to brew the Delirium and Averbode beers. Below the parking and loading areas, the brewer previously installed big water reservoirs to collect any groundwater, each year a total 2,800 cuber meters of water is being saved in this way. Yearly, the brewer now expect to collection and reuse
While with the investment for a rainwater collection system and previous water reservoirs do save a fair amount of 6,400 cubic meters of water per year, the brewers yearly usage is much higher at 80.000 cubic meters of water. Collecting and reusing about 8% of water on-site is great, hats off to the Huyghe brewery!