A startup in the clean-water space is making a curious bet on beer. Curious, because the beer is made from recycled shower and laundry water.
San Francisco-based Epic Cleantec launched in 2015 as a wastewater recycling company using its proprietary technology to clean and reuse water in office and apartment buildings.
At the time, CEO Aaron Tartakovsky said, “We need to overhaul our flush and forget society.”
Now, he’s taking it to the next level.
“A lot of it was psychology,” he said. “It is getting people comfortable with the concept of recycled water. And we found that if you tell people that the water is clean, maybe they trust you, maybe they don’t. But you take those exact same molecules of recycled water, put them into a beautiful beer can, all of a sudden, people love it.”
For the beer, Epic’s systems collect water just from showers and laundries and then run it through several treatment steps, including filters, biological treatment, membrane filtration, granular activated carbon, reverse osmosis and disinfection, according to the company.
The resulting clean water is then taken to Devil’s Canyon Brewing Co., where it’s made into beer.
The beer is available for online orders in California, Virginia, Oregon, Ohio, Kentucky, Vermont, New Hampshire, Nebraska, North Dakota, Rhode Island, Alaska and Washington, D.C., and in retail locations in California.
It takes about 10 gallons of water to make a gallon of beer, so using recycled water has a huge impact on the water supply. Epic’s IPA is also made with drought-resistant and energy-efficient hops, grain and yeast — emphasizing environmental impact from grain to glass.
But, again, it’s not about the beer.
“Buildings use about 15% of all the fresh water on this planet,” Tartakovsky said. “We need to do things differently, and that means we need to tell the story differently. We need to engage people differently.”
Jordan Langer, CEO of events company Non Plus Ultra, was an original investor in Epic when it was just about buildings. Now, he serves the beer at his events.
“I was a little bit skeptical. I’m not a believer in gimmicks,” Langer said. “But I was wrong. It blew up like crazy. It has given a lot of spotlight onto Epic Cleantec, which has made it really, quite, quite interesting.”
In addition to three family offices, Epic Cleantec is backed by J-Ventures, J-Impact and Echo River Capital. Total funding to date is $25 million.
Epic currently has two beer offerings, Shower Hour IPA and Laundry Club Kölsch. Tartakovsky said the company is also considering making a nonalcoholic beer.
— CNBC producer Lisa Rizzolo contributed to this piece.