If you have a favorite brewery, you also have a favorite watershed.
A new effort from conservation groups and local breweries aims to connect those two ideas, that good craft beer must start with good, clean water.
“That water flows through, and it picks up minerals and nutrients, but it can also pick up pollutants. All of these things affect the quality of downstream beer,” said Thomas Waymouth, director of the new Texas Brewshed Alliance.
Waymouth and his wife brought the idea to the Wimberley Valley Watershed Association when they moved to the Hill Country from Oregon, where one of the first brewshed alliances was established in 2015. There are now at least five others, in Texas, Washington, Maine, Colorado and Idaho.
The organization connects breweries with the conservation groups working to protect their local water sources — their “brewsheds.”
Read more from Chris Davis with KXAN here