Beer is a mainstay of sporting events, nights out, and barbecues. But the main ingredient in beer is water, and as everyone knows, water supplies are often heavily contaminated with PFAS. So, does this create a problem for beer drinkers?
A recent study from RTI International has the cheeky title: “Hold My Beer: The Linkage between Municipal Water and Brewing Location on PFAS in Popular Beverages.” What’s not so amusing is their finding that most of the 23 beers that they tested had high levels of PFAS chemicals.
While we know PFAS is found in all sorts of products, this is the first study measuring PFAS levels in beer using a modification of EPA Method 533 for PFAS in water. Let’s take a look at what they found and what it might mean for beer drinkers.
What are PFAS compounds?
PFAS stands for per- and polyfluoroalkyl compounds. These are man-made chemicals that have been used in a broad range of products since the 1950s. They have been used across all industries and in all sorts of consumer products. This was due to their desirable properties of being non-stick, stain-resisting, and water-repelling. PFAS chemicals degrade very slowly in the environment, and some PFAS compounds persist in the human body for decades. PFAS are also found in municipal water, wastewater, and wastewater byproducts, which make it into our food and water supplies. The bottom line is that PFAS compounds are everywhere.
How is beer brewed commercially?
Adults in the US consume an average of 29 gallons of beer per year, with a pretty wide distribution by state. There are over 9,900 breweries in the U.S., most of which are microbreweries, taprooms, and brewpubs that produce their own beer.
Commercial brewing primer
The beer production process involves four main stages.
- Preparation of the grain component of beer, typically barley, wheat, rye, or rice. This stage involves malting or sprouting the grains, which activates enzymes needed for converting starch to sugar. Then, the grains are milled or crushed to expose the starches.
- The malted grains are boiled with hot water to extract the sugars. The boiled liquid is strained to remove the spent grains. The remaining liquid is further boiled and hops are added to create the desired level of aroma and bitterness, resulting in what’s called the wort.
- Now yeast is added to the cooled wort, leading to fermentation and the conversion of the sugars into alcohol and carbon dioxide.
- The last stage involves conditioning, where the beer is matured at low temperatures to clarify it and develop its final flavors before packaging for sale.
Potential sources of PFAS
Throughout the entire beer production process, there are multiple opportunities for PFAS to get introduced into the beer. Material inputs such as water (beer is 90-95% water), the grains, and hops are key sources of PFAS. Other sources of PFAS contamination include the equipment used in any step of the process, as well as containers and tubing used to store, transfer, and package the beer.
Source water contaminated with PFAS may end up in your beer
As we wrote in a previous blog, drinking water and municipal water are known to be key routes of PFAS exposure. . Knowing that water is a major source of PFAS, the researchers at RTI International sought to understand if PFAS in municipal U.S. water supplies are a significant contributor to PFAS levels in beer. They also wanted to understand whether breweries of different sizes (i.e. microbrewery vs. large brewery) had an impact on PFAS levels.
To this end, the researchers selected 23 different beers based on a number of criteria, including ease of purchase and ability to test using their analytical methods.
What did they find?
At least one type of PFAS chemical was found in 86% of beers produced in counties with high PFAS water supplies. There appears to be some trend towards high water contamination leading to high PFAS levels in beer. Within North Carolina, for example, higher total PFAS concentrations were found in beers made in counties within the Cape Fear River Basin (where PFAS contamination is high).
PFOA (perfluorooctanoic acid), which is a specific PFAS compound that was phased out by 2015, was found in 36% of tested beers with a median concentration of 4.095 parts per trillion. The EPA set limits of certain PFAS chemicals in water, and the amount of allowable PFOA is 4 parts per trillion. This means that for about one-third of the beers tested, the level of PFOA was higher than allowable for drinking water, suggesting much higher levels in the source water.
As for the role of brewery size on PFAS levels, the study did not test enough samples from larger breweries with and without PFAS-contaminated water sources to come to a clear conclusion.
The bottom line is that there seems to be a link between the levels of PFAS in local drinking water and the levels found in the finished beer.
What to do as a beer drinker
The findings of the study highlight that most beers contain PFAS. While you can’t completely eliminate PFAS, it may make sense to lower beer consumption or choose beers brewed in places with lower PFAS levels in municipal water. (Here’s a resource to check for PFAS levels in water). We know that PFAS is the last thing on your mind when you’re about to enjoy a cold one. That said, if you’d like peace of mind regarding PFAS exposure from beer, you can use a PFAS blood test kit to track your levels over time.
