Not long ago, Mexican President Andres Manuel López Obrador abandoned plans for a large brewery in the northern Mexico metropolis of Mexicali. "How can we have beer breweries in the north?" he said. "What are we exporting? Water."
He said it out loud: "We don't have water in the north."
Alfonso Cortez Lara, a water expert at the College of the Northern Border, said the planned brewery was projected to use more water than all the industrial users in Mexicali combined. "We're talking about 25% of our [water] reserves," he said of the brewery's proposed peak water use. Mexico's human rights commission warned that the brewery risked violating the right to water.
You would think economists and leaders would jump on the opportunity to diversify Mexicali's economy, which has been historically based on agricultural products. But in a March referendum more than two-thirds of voters pushed back against a proposed $1.4 billion brewery. No small venture. In fact, Mexico is a premiere beer producer — the largest in the world — with about $4.6 billion of product exported annually, much to the U.S. in bottles of Corona, Pacifico and Modelo.
In Minnesota, a state that prides itself on water and breweries, this is relevant news. As a co-owner of a family-owned brewery that resides on, depends on and deeply values one of the largest freshwater stores in the world, we believe that stewardship of that water is vital. We've designed our brewery to recapture and reuse thousands of gallons of water annually, and have installed a rooftop full of solar panels to lower our carbon footprint.
In the U.S., we have more breweries in operation than we have had in 150 years. As the industry grows to record levels, brewers across the country are making business decisions based on resource management; water is at the forefront. Water consumption and waste are large economic factors in an industry that operates with tight margins.
What is critical to brewers is the quality of water. Breweries everywhere spend thousands of dollars to test water quality to ensure that their primary ingredient produces a product that beer drinkers adore. If we don't begin to address the issue of water depletion, water quality will no longer be a concern.
Do you think this is not our country's problem? A Sonoma, Calif., brewery killed an expansion plan because of water scarcity. During a recent drought in Chico, Calif., a large brewery had to reduce its production by 30%. The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation said that the reservoirs along the Colorado River hit critically low volumes in 2020, leading to water shortages throughout the Western U.S., which will critically affect breweries depending on that natural resource.
