Drought.......no water?

They will keep brewing beer, California will just sacrifice the water that is used for the agricultural products we send out of state.

 

Restaurants use a lot more water than breweries as a whole and to my knowledge they have never been affected by water restrictions.

 

Bear Republic is hurting pretty bad right now.

 

Bear Republic gave money to their city to drill new wells. They saved Cloverdale from complete starvation.

 

I was at Old Orange Brewing and they are working on a drought tolerant beer called Sin Agua.
It is part of a "turn around" for OOB. They've seen what Nobel has been able to do with the "Showers" series. They think that with the trend of hoppier is better in the IPA market, that if they just fill bottles with hop pellet, they will save enough water to produce the other crap beer they make.

 

Wow.

 

I haven't heard anything about breweries being asked to sacrifice, and in the short term I think it's probably unlikely. But it could happen down the road, especially if drought is the "new normal" for California as might be the case with climate change.

California has three main "clients" for its water supply: agriculture, municipal water districts, and environmental concerns. Agriculture uses by far the largest percentage of water, and it's the first thing that gets reduced when supplies are short. This costs money and jobs and results in higher food prices, but the simple fact is that when push comes to shove, politicians aren't going to cut off the water supply for major cities. Most brewers are on municipal systems, so they're going to get their water along with the cities--in the short term, anyway.

In the long run, who knows? The huge population growth in Arizona and Nevada is already threatening to take a lot of Colorado River water that California has taken in the past, and if the climate does change in the way that most scientists think it will (becoming hotter, with less snow pack) it's *possible* that water shortages could become an issue for the brewing industry.

 

Drought conditions aren't so much the "new" normal as they are just normal, the region was initially settled during a time of abnormal rainfall and water availability (although climate change certainly doesn't help the situation. The major metropolitan areas in Southern California have never had sufficient local water supplies to support anywhere near their population, and California has done a great job of very quickly burning through its aquifers. Cadillac Desert should be required reading for everyone that grows up west of the Mississippi.

I suspect that the cost of water will become an issue before sheer availability threatens the brewing industry. If the cost of water goes up - which it almost assuredly will in some way for this region - that cost will be passed on to brewers, and brewing is a relatively wasteful process when it comes to water, in that the industry standard is that it takes 5 - 7 gallons of water to yield 1 gallon of beer (source). If water districts increase pricing for heavy and/or non-essential users, breweries will feel that pinch, beer prices will rise, and will likely accelerate the closure of some breweries that don't have a viable business strategy. I wouldn't guess that water will be a significant issue in the brewing in the next few years, nor do I believe it will be the leading cause of brewers going out of business (that will be making mediocre and/or overpriced beer in a saturated market), but it will inevitably present itself as an issue for this region in the future.