Art Larrance’s impact on Oregon’s brewing culture and industry has been rightfully lauded following his passing in May 2024, but his influence was also felt both closer to home for Clean Water Services (CWS), as well as worldwide.
In 2013, CWS was searching for a way to advance the conversation about water reuse in Oregon. The CWS water reuse program already provided water for golf courses, athletic fields, and parks, but we knew that to meet the challenges of a changing climate, population growth, and increasingly strict water quality standards, we needed to be ready to expand reuse.
Larrance, who was the owner of Cascade Brewing and a member of the Clean Water Services Advisory Commission at the time, suggested that if you want to talk about water, you need to make beer. From that suggestion bubbled up Pure Water Brew, a demonstration project that included competitions among Oregon Brew Crew members to craft tasty beer with used water cleaned at our Durham Water Resource Recovery Facility in Tigard, Oregon, then run through a high purity water treatment system.
The project drew national and international attention — including media coverage by The Associated Press and Bloomberg — and advanced the reuse dialogue in Oregon and around the world.
Listen to this podcast episode to hear from members of the Pure Water Brewing Alliance about the sustainable practice of brewing beer with reuse water, and how high purity water is providing a blank canvas for brewers to showcase their brewing skills and creativity:
