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Hey guys, I posted on the facebook page about this subject but thought I'd get some opinions here too.

Recently there has been a lot of publicity about Irelands water and the fact that we are the only European country with mandatory water fluoridation.
Unless a food or drinks company uses water distillation then the water in beer will contain fluoride too. Diageo uses the water from Poulaphouca which means there will be fluoride in their beers but I was wondering if our craft beer companies do as well and if this is an issue for anyone?

Hot Press have been pushing this issue following the findings of environmental scientist Declan Waugh...
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I drink craft beer for the taste and complexity mostly but there is, for me, an issue with regard to whats natural and whats not. The fluoride added to Ireland water is a by-product of industrial fertiliser so I would rather drink a beer that doesn't contain it.

I brew with filtered rain water!! <!-- s:mrgreen: --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_mrgreen.gif" alt="" title="Mr. Green" /><!-- s:mrgreen: -->

&amp;quot;agnosticdave&amp;quot;:1f7l3gdh wrote: Unless a food or drinks company uses water distillation then the water in beer will contain fluoride too[/quote:1f7l3gdh]
Is it possible they filter it using an RO system? I wouldn't have thought they'd have to distill it

Lars, RO (Reverse Osmosis) uses a huge amount of water: according to Western Green, more than 3/4's of water is flushed away so I would be very surprised if this was used on any kind of production scale. If I'm proved wrong I would be very happy, though!
I'm interested in our perception of chemical free beers and does it matter where along the chain the chemical is added.

Most large breweries use RO or ion exchange to treat their water. The industrial RO plants can be up to 90% efficient as they can apply very high pressures, the domestic units can't and so they are only around 15% at max. An industrial RO unit is not economic for smaller breweries though. Theres an excellent review from the IBD of water treatments here, <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/jib.18/pdf">onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/jib.18/pdf

Here's an interesting update which mentions the fact that a chemical is added to Irish water and, as has been mentioned recently,may well impact upon any Irish brewer exporting to countries where fluoride is banned, ie- Germany!
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