Brewery Wastewater Treatment
Sector Overview
Contents
This page provides in-depth guidance on how to design and optimise a brewery wastewater treatment system. You’ll find a step-by-step overview of the processes, treatment options, and tailored solutions available for your business.
Effective wastewater treatment is not only vital for environmental protection—it’s also key to the long-term success of your brewery operations. By selecting the right treatment plant, you can confidently meet all regulatory requirements for both direct and indirect discharge.
ClearFox® specialises in custom-designed brewery wastewater treatment systems, engineered to match the unique operational needs of each facility. As experts in the field, we’re here to help. Continue reading to learn more.
Brewery Wastewater: Why Treatment Matters
While beer is made up of 90–95% water, the majority of water used in breweries goes into cleaning and disinfecting equipment.
As a result, the wastewater produced is rich in organic matter, solids, and cleaning agents — and cannot be discharged untreated, either directly or indirectly.
Every Brewery is Different
Each brewery generates a unique wastewater profile, depending on its size, production process, and cleaning protocols. This variability means that treatment solutions must be customised to meet the specific requirements of each facility.
The Benefits of Proper Treatment
Investing in an effective wastewater treatment system doesn’t just ensure regulatory compliance — it can also significantly reduce operational costs over time by:
Minimising wastewater surcharges
Reducing water usage through recycling
Improving process efficiency
Sources and Properties of Brewery Wastewater
Maintaining strict hygiene standards is essential in every brewery. Because beer is a highly sensitive product, no foreign bacteria or yeasts must enter the brewing process — especially after the hops have been boiled. This makes constant cleaning of brewing utensils, mash pans, lauter tuns, fermentation, and storage tanks absolutely critical.
As a result, two main types of wastewater are produced:
Organic wastewater – from rinsing vats and cleaning spent grain tanks (contains sugars, starches, yeasts, and husks)
Chemical wastewater – from cleaning storage tanks and bottles (contains cleaning agents and disinfectants)
These effluents vary in terms of COD, BOD5, pH, and nitrogen load.
Beer Ingredients and Wastewater Impact
Beer is traditionally made from four core ingredients: water, malt, hops, and yeast. While some breweries add fruits or special grains, most industrial brewers use only these four.
Water must meet drinking water standards — it does not contribute to wastewater contamination.
Malt, hops, and yeast introduce most of the organic load into the wastewater.
Mashing & Lautering
Malt is the second-largest beer ingredient after water. During mashing, enzymes like alpha- and beta-amylase convert malt starches into fermentable sugars. The byproduct is spent grain, often reused as animal feed or for baking.
Cleaning the mash tun and lauter tun creates wastewater that is sugar-rich and contains spent grains.
See composition details:
| Value | COD | BOD5 | N | P |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| mg/l | 3.000 | 1.800 | 100 | 30 |
Hop Addition
Hops, though used in small amounts, have a major impact on taste, shelf life, and foam stability. They are added in the form of:
Hop pellets – leave solid residue in the wort, which affects cleaning water
Hop extract – no solids, but still leaves resins behind
Both forms contribute to resinous residues in the wastewater.
See pollutant load:
| Value | COD | BOD5 | N | P |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| mg/l | 3.200 | 2.000 | 200 | 100 |
Fermentation
Yeast converts sugar into alcohol and CO2 during fermentation. Afterward, the beer is stored and filtered before bottling. Cleaning tanks at this stage adds yeast, residual sugars, and alcohol to the wastewater.
Details:
| Value | NaOH50% | Basic acids | Confectioned means | Belt lubricant |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| mg/l | 4.550 | 570 | 1.140 | 220 |
Bottling & Container Cleaning
Beer is packaged in kegs, cans, or reusable bottles — with bottles reused up to 60 times. Cleaning these containers removes leftover product and foreign particles.
This process generates around 65 litres of wastewater per hectolitre of beer.
Chemical content:
Alkaline and acidic cleaners
Phosphoric, nitric, and sulphuric acids
Up to 1,200 g of cleaning agents per hectolitre
These cleaning processes are often automated CIP (Clean-In-Place) systems.
Chemical consumption overview:
| Value | COD | BOD5 | N | P |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| mg/l | 3.200 | 2.000 | 110 | 40 |
Brewery Wastewater Discharge Options
| Wastewater source | Options | Treatment procedure |
|---|---|---|
| Brewery | Indirect discharge | Screening |
| SBR process | ||
| Discharge into the environment | Screening | |
| FBBR process | ||
| Reuse | Screening | |
| FBBR process | ||
| Ultrafiltration |
Breweries typically have three main options for managing their wastewater: indirect discharge, direct discharge, and wastewater reuse. Each path requires specific treatment processes to ensure compliance with environmental regulations and operational efficiency.
Indirect Discharge
Indirect discharge refers to releasing brewery wastewater into the public sewer system. From there, it is transported to a municipal wastewater treatment plant for further processing. This method always requires a discharge permit from the relevant regional water authority.
Key Considerations for Indirect Discharge:
Pre-treatment is essential to avoid penalties and meet municipal standards.
Screening is the first step, ideally using a drum screen with a fine mesh (~1 mm). Larger mesh sizes (~3 mm) risk clogging, especially when grains or husks are present in the wastewater.
Many breweries face pollution surcharges if their discharge is not sufficiently treated. To reduce COD and BOD₅ levels before discharge, we often recommend an SBR (Sequencing Batch Reactor) process, which offers flexible control over treatment time and aeration intensity.
Direct Discharge
Direct discharge means releasing treated wastewater directly into a natural water body (stream, river, or basin), or reusing it on-site, such as for irrigating green spaces.
Treatment Requirements for Direct Discharge:
A higher purification level is necessary to protect the environment.
The most effective solution is biological treatment, particularly using our FBBR (Fixed Bed Biofilm Reactor) technology.
Our cascaded fixed-bed system, developed specifically for the food and beverage industry, handles the high concentrations of sugar, alcohol, and organic suspended solids typical in brewery wastewater.
Combined with mechanical pre-treatment, this biological solution enables reliable, regulation-compliant discharge.
Wastewater Reuse
Water reuse is an increasingly important goal for breweries aiming to improve sustainability and reduce operating costs.
Applications & Requirements for Reuse:
Most reused water is used for cleaning brewing equipment, boilers, and tanks (CIP – Clean-in-Place).
To reach the required purity levels, a multi-stage treatment process is necessary:
Mechanical screening
Biological treatment
Ultrafiltration, which removes nearly all remaining particles through high-precision membrane filtration.
This makes the treated water suitable for non-potable reuse, contributing to reduced freshwater consumption and improved resource efficiency.
Get the Right Design for Your Brewery
Selecting the correct treatment process is critical. An improperly designed system may fail to meet treatment goals, incur unexpected costs, or experience frequent downtime.
We are here to help with expert support, from system design to full implementation. Our solutions are tailored to meet your specific discharge goals—whether indirect, direct, or reuse.
The guide below will walk you through how to plan and design the right wastewater treatment system for your brewery. If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to contact our team.
Planning and buying a brewery wastewater treatment plant
Expert Solutions for Brewery Wastewater Treatment
You now have a solid understanding of the sources and characteristics of brewery wastewater. With years of hands-on experience and a proven track record, we have partnered with breweries around the world to deliver effective, tailor-made wastewater treatment systems. Thanks to our expertise and consistent performance, we are proud to be the European market leader in brewery wastewater treatment.
What Sets Us Apart
Our solutions are built around the needs of modern breweries and focus on:
✅ High customer satisfaction
✅ Low CAPEX and OPEX
✅ Compact system footprint
✅ Remote monitoring and external access
✅ Treatment performance tailored to required effluent values
✅ Reliable, long-lasting operation
✅ Minimal maintenance requirements
✅ Fast and simple installation
✅ Dedicated personal support
✅ Strict adherence to budget
Every treatment solution we design combines high quality with sustainable, resource-efficient processes. We collaborate closely with PIA GmbH, a globally recognized independent testing institute for wastewater technology. Their certifications consistently confirm the exceptional performance of our systems.
Modular, Scalable, and Future-Proof
All of our brewery wastewater treatment systems are modular and scalable, allowing easy expansion or adaptation to meet changing wastewater volumes or compositions. Whether for new installations, upgrades, or temporary solutions, we’ve got you covered—with rental systems also available for short-term needs.
Our containerised solutions are designed for flexibility and mobility. They can be installed either within your production hall or elsewhere on the brewery premises, requiring minimal space. And if your production volume increases, your treatment system can scale accordingly—no investment ever goes to waste.
Built for Breweries by Industry Experts
As specialists in the food and beverage sector, we’ve developed systems that are:
Robust and built for continuous operation
Easy to use, thanks to a simple and intuitive interface
Low maintenance, saving time and labour
Designed for integration into existing processes
Whether you’re planning a new system or upgrading an existing one, our team is here to help—from concept to commissioning and beyond.
Get Started with Confidence
Ready to move forward? Arrange a free site survey and preliminary design to map loads, constraints and effluent targets and to receive a tailored modular solution and budgetary quote.
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