{"id":7311,"date":"2016-08-17T19:40:32","date_gmt":"2016-08-18T01:40:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/womenofgreen.com\/?p=7311"},"modified":"2016-08-19T17:33:06","modified_gmt":"2016-08-19T23:33:06","slug":"rainbeer-dutch-beer-harvested-rainwater","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/womenofgreen.com\/2016\/08\/17\/rainbeer-dutch-beer-harvested-rainwater\/","title":{"rendered":"The New Rainbeer: A Dutch Beer Made With Harvested Rainwater"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>A group of Dutch entrepreneurs has used their country\u2019s wet weather as a business opportunity by creating a rainwater bitter.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>It may have been the <a class=\"u-underline\" href=\"http:\/\/www.dutchnews.nl\/news\/archives\/2016\/06\/june-is-wettest-ever-in-the-south-and-changeable-weather-will-continue\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\" data-link-name=\"in body link\">wettest June<\/a> since records began in some of the Netherlands, but that\u2019s no reason for the Dutch to be despondent.<\/p>\n<p>A small group of entrepreneurs has demonstrated that it\u2019s the perfect excuse to make beer, launching a brew made from rainwater.<\/p>\n<p>The idea is that with climate change linked to increased rainfall in the Netherlands \u2013 just as <a class=\"u-underline\" href=\"https:\/\/next.ft.com\/content\/831d04d4-b5ee-11e5-b147-e5e5bba42e51\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\" data-link-name=\"in body link\">in the UK<\/a> \u2013 they might as well use it as a business opportunity.<\/p>\n<p>At the De Prael brewery in Amsterdam early on Friday evening, bitter lovers turned up for a free tasting of <a class=\"u-underline\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/events\/1795555394009928\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\" data-link-name=\"in body link\">Hemelswater: code blond<\/a>, a 5.7% beer made from ultra-filtered rain, organic malted barley and wheat, hops and yeast.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s a bitter blond, like an IPA,\u201d explains Hemelswater (which means heaven\u2019s water in Dutch) co-founder Joris Hoebe, \u201cIt\u2019s quite bitter, fruity and soft.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-7319 alignnone\" src=\"https:\/\/womenofgreen.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/harvested_rain_beer_De_Prael_Women_of_Green.jpg\" alt=\"harvested_rain_beer_De_Prael_Women_of_Green\" width=\"569\" height=\"571\" srcset=\"https:\/\/womenofgreen.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/harvested_rain_beer_De_Prael_Women_of_Green.jpg 569w, https:\/\/womenofgreen.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/harvested_rain_beer_De_Prael_Women_of_Green-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/womenofgreen.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/harvested_rain_beer_De_Prael_Women_of_Green-300x300.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 569px) 100vw, 569px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The social entrepreneur and student coach got involved in this project, inspired by a government spin-off called Amsterdam Rainproof. This body aims to make citizens aware of the problems of heavy rainfall and <a class=\"u-underline broken_link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.rainproof.nl\/sites\/default\/files\/downloads\/rainproof_vouwfolder_a2_engels_infographic.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\" name=\"in body link\">take action<\/a> (pdf) to increase the city\u2019s <a class=\"u-underline\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/sustainable-business\/rotterdam-flood-proof-climate-change\" target=\"_blank\" data-link-name=\"in body link\">sponge capacity<\/a>, so that rainwater is absorbed or used instead of causing flash-floods.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe get lousy summers and a lot of rain,\u201d says 37-year-old Hoebe. \u201cAs a hobby, I was also brewing beer and noticed you need a lot of water. I was thinking, why don\u2019t we put these two together: the abundance of rainwater and the need for water to brew beer?\u201d<\/p>\n<div id=\"dfp-ad--im\" class=\"js-ad-slot ad-slot ad-slot--dfp ad-slot--im ad-slot--im ad-slot--rendered\" data-link-name=\"ad slot im\" data-test-id=\"ad-slot-im\" data-name=\"im\" data-mobile=\"1,1|88,85\" data-label=\"false\" data-refresh=\"false\" data-google-query-id=\"CO7hmfLDx84CFZJ1AQodSXoDUQ\">\n<div id=\"google_ads_iframe_\/59666047\/theguardian.com\/sustainable-business\/article\/ng_2__container__\" class=\"ad-slot__content\">\u00a0Together with a group of four students and a researcher from the startup development initiative MediaLAB Amsterdam, Hoebe set up two huge tanks in the grounds of the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>Obligingly, May brought two weekends of heavy rain and the team managed to push 1,000 litres of rainwater to De Prael brewery in central Amsterdam, which had agreed to be their partner.<\/p>\n<p>Using a special bacterial filtration system also called <em>Hemelswater<\/em>, they filtered the beer and handed it over to be boiled and made into the brewery\u2019s simplest beer.<\/p>\n<p>The brew is currently on sale for around \u20ac2 (\u00a31.70) a bottle, and will be served on tap at various restaurants and bars around the Dutch capital (for around \u20ac4 or \u00a33.40).<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn the next year, we want to scale up with hundreds of these tanks across the city, on [the roof space of] companies, restaurants and cafes,\u201d says Hoebe. \u201cWe want them to catch the water, we\u2019ll put in sensors and when their tanks are full, we\u2019ll collect the water with electric cars and filter it. We are thinking about making beer, sorbet, soup and lemonade.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>There is a precedent, he adds. \u201cIt seems like a disruptive idea, but when we researched it, in the middle ages, [Dutch] breweries set up near churches and cathedrals to catch rainwater runoff from their roofs.<\/p>\n<p>People may worry that about the cleanliness of rainwater, but Hoebe says \u201cyou boil the beer so bacteria are killed. There are a lot of problems with drinking water, with more drugs and hormones [found in it]. We believe that with rainwater, we can make cleaner beer.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"u-underline broken_link\" href=\"http:\/\/deprael.nl\/en_GB\/homepage\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\" name=\"in body link\">De Prael<\/a> liked the sound of the project from the start, says marketing manager Thomas Gesink. Founded 13 years ago, the Amsterdam brewery employs people facing difficulties in getting a job, training them in the art of making beer (with some support from social funds).<\/p>\n<p>It is set to expand to a second site, and is planning a rainwater tank for the roof to make more code blond beer \u2013 whose name is inspired by Dutch color-coded weather warnings.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe have this goal to contribute to a better society, and we like to use and make products that are good for the environment,\u201d says Gesink. \u201cThe idea is to have cafes catch their own water that we use to make their beer.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Daniel Goedbloed, program manager at Amsterdam Rainproof, said the body was created by the Dutch water infrastructure organization Waternet in response to a <a class=\"u-underline broken_link\" href=\"http:\/\/cphpost.dk\/news\/local-news\/drenched.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\" name=\"in body link\">disastrous 2011 cloudburst<\/a> in Copenhagen, which saw six inches of rainfall in less than three hours causing \u00a3688m of damage. \u201cThey thought how vulnerable Amsterdam is with all its canals,\u201d he explains.<\/p>\n<p>His group gives commissions to small projects, encourages people to create rain-friendly gardens and green roofs, and lobbies larger building projects to incorporate rainwater gathering.<\/p>\n<p>A new island in the <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/IJburg\" target=\"_blank\">IJburg artificial island chain<\/a> in Amsterdam, for instance, is now being rainproofed, and Mirandabad swimming pool has a parking area on large plastic crates of gravel, so rainwater drains through quickly.<\/p>\n<p>There are government grants to make green roofs and Amsterdam Rainproof is working with other organizations to encourage crowdfunding.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cRain beer is great,\u201d said Goedbloed. \u201cWe say every drop counts, and don\u2019t just look at the down sides. Look at the fact that you can use rainwater to green the city and make it more attractive or even flush your toilet. Hemelswater uses rainwater to make a really nice product: beer. It\u2019s fun, and a lot of people drink beer.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/sustainable-business\/2016\/jul\/10\/rainwater-beer-amsterdam-hemelswater-rainfall-climate-change-de-prael-brewery?CMP=share_btn_tw\" target=\"_blank\">The Guardian<\/a><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/womenofgreen.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Women of Green<\/a>\u00a0is TURNING UP THE VOLUME of the feminine voice on the planet in order to create the world we know is possible.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A group of Dutch entrepreneurs has used their country\u2019s wet weather as a business opportunity by creating a rainwater bitter. At the De Prael brewery in Amsterdam early on Friday evening, bitter lovers turned up for a free tasting of Hemelswater: code blond, a 5.7% beer made from ultra-filtered rain, organic malted barley and wheat, hops and yeast. With climate change linked to increased rainfall in the Netherlands \u2013 just as in the UK \u2013 they might as well use it as a business opportunity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7314,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1359,1347,1343],"tags":[1727,225,1726,697,43,12,88,1724,1725,96,8],"class_list":["post-7311","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured-post","category-innovation","category-nature","tag-amsterdam-rainproof","tag-climate-change","tag-de-prael","tag-ecological-sustainability-2","tag-green-building","tag-green-business","tag-green-products","tag-rainbeer","tag-rainproofing","tag-recycling","tag-women-of-green"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/womenofgreen.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7311","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/womenofgreen.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/womenofgreen.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/womenofgreen.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/womenofgreen.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7311"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/womenofgreen.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7311\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7333,"href":"https:\/\/womenofgreen.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7311\/revisions\/7333"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/womenofgreen.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7314"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/womenofgreen.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7311"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/womenofgreen.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7311"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/womenofgreen.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7311"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}