San Diego brewery creates beer from 'toilet to tap' recycled water

March 17 (UPI) -- A San Diego brewery unveiled its latest brew -- a beer made from recycled water dubbed "toilet to tap" by locals.

Stone Brewery, the city's largest brewer, officially unveiled Stone Full Circle Pale Ale Thursday at its Point Loma location, with local beer fans including Mayor Kevin Faulconer on hand to sample the beer made with water from the city's "pure water" recycling program.

"It is fantastic," The Times of San Diego quoted Faulconer as saying after sampling a sip. "There's no better way to highlight the purity of this water."

"Just a great example of what this is gonna be like in terms of the future and Stone who's a huge driver of not just the craft beer industry but sustainability, that's what our pure water program is all about," the mayor told XETV.

The pure water program, which locals have nicknamed "toilet to tap," is a system that, once completed, will put recycled wastewater back into the fresh water system instead of into the ocean. The system is expected to provide one-third of the city's freshwater supply by 2035.

Steve Gonzalez, Stone's senior manager of brewing and innovation, said the recycled water is in some ways superior to the brewery's current water supply, needing only the addition of some salts to be ideal for beer making.

"This particular water will just help us not require so much natural water to come in and give us a more reliable source, so for us to be able to re-use that's part of our mantra, that's part of what we do," Stone Chief Operating Officer Pat Tiernan said.