Meet the project that turns pee into beer
Every self-respecting brewer knows the basic rule of the drink: one hour you'll have to go to the bathroom. And every brewer also knows the second basic rule: after the first pee, the urge to pee will be constant.
So much urine is being wasted in latrines around the world that a Danish rock festival came up with an unusual idea. They are reusing the revelers' pee to make beer! But calm down, it's not what you're imagining - if you are thinking of using the yellow liquid itself to make the preciousness.
Pee as a fertilizer
The 2015 Roskilde festival brought together over 100, 000 people in a week of shows in the Danish town of the same name. Artists such as Muse, Pharrell Williams, Florence and the Machine, Paul McCartney and even Brazilian Tom Zé were on the festival's line-up, which took place from June 27th to July 4th this year.
New this year was that the event organizers collected the urine of the crowd to irrigate barley fields in the region. The feature, dubbed Beercycling, is expected to produce the first pee-fertilized beers for the 2017 Roskilde festival., Communication Director of the Food and Agriculture Council of Denmark.
“Beercycling will turn gallons of urine into a resource, ” continued Nielsen. In addition, he believes the concept of sustainability is on the agenda today, and every project that proves sustainable should be taken advantage of. "The fact that rock is involved will help to further spread our message, " added the director.
“The Beercycling project is a sustainable solution where urine is not sent down the drain and ends up being a useful product, ” said Henrik Rasmussen, festival director. He also comments that the number of people attending the event makes it a great laboratory for testing the effectiveness of the project for the whole society.
Purified urine
However, Beercycling is not the only project in the world to make beer from urine. In Portland, USA, a brewery is trying to get the license to produce the holy liquid from pee purification! That's right: there are people who want to use the same liquid we urinate as a raw material for beer. That's a bit too much, don't you think?
