Posted on 08/29/2025 5:55:06 AM PDT by Red Badger
Researchers found PFAS in 95% of tested beers, with the highest levels linked to contaminated local water sources.
Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), better known as forever chemicals, are gaining notoriety for their ability to linger in the environment and for possible links to health problems. Now, scientists are finding these chemicals in surprising places, including beer. A study published in ACS Environmental Science & Technology analyzed beers brewed across different regions of the United States. The results showed that the highest PFAS levels appeared in beers made in areas where local water supplies are already known to be contaminated.
“As an occasional beer drinker myself, I wondered whether PFAS in water supplies was making its way into our pints,” says research lead Jennifer Hoponick Redmon. “I hope these findings inspire water treatment strategies and policies that help reduce the likelihood of PFAS in future pours.”
PFAS are synthetic chemicals created for their ability to resist water, oil, and stains. They have been detected in rivers, groundwater, and public water systems across the U.S. and globally. While breweries generally use water treatment and filtration processes, those systems are not equipped to filter out PFAS.
To explore the extent of contamination, Hoponick Redmon and her team adapted a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) method normally used to test PFAS levels in drinking water. They applied this approach to 23 beers, including those from American breweries located in areas with documented water contamination as well as well-known domestic and international brands that source their water from less transparent locations.
Beer and Water Contamination Links
The researchers found a strong correlation between PFAS concentrations in municipal drinking water and levels in locally brewed beer — a phenomenon that Hoponick Redmon and colleagues say has not yet been studied in U.S. retail beer. They found PFAS in 95% of the beers they tested. These include perfluorooctanesulfonate (PFOS) and perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), two forever chemicals with recently established EPA limits in drinking water. Notably, the team found that beers brewed near the Cape Fear River Basin in North Carolina, an area with known PFAS pollution, had the highest levels and most diverse mix of forever chemicals, including PFOS and PFOA.
This work shows that PFAS contamination at one source can spread into other products, and the researchers call for greater awareness among brewers, consumers, and regulators to limit overall PFAS exposure. These results also highlight the possible need for water treatment upgrades at brewing facilities as PFAS regulations in drinking water change or updates to municipal water system treatment are implemented.
Reference:
“Hold My Beer: The Linkage between Municipal Water and Brewing Location on PFAS in Popular Beverages”
by Jennifer Hoponick Redmon, Nicole M. DeLuca, Evan Thorp, Chamindu Liyanapatirana, Laura Allen and Andrew J. Kondash, 24 April 2025, Environmental Science & Technology.
DOI: 10.1021/acs.est.4c11265
The authors acknowledge funding from an internal research grant from RTI International.
With all the contamination in water beer not that bad of a option.
In LA they filter sewer water for drinking water.
Honey the soup has a tang to it you change brands?.
I know how you feel.
Yes, and I’ll stick to my wine. Picked off the side of steep hill by girls. And all the girls were named Eileen.
Those chemicals were, more than likely, there all along. Only now is it sensational to test for them.
My brothers kids work there, Denece and Denephew
Yeah...seems like another ‘alarmist report’ with no substance. No evidence given that this is even a health problem. It also tries to target beer(?). I’m not sure why that would be any different than any other drink.
If they’re ‘forever chemicals’ - does that mean they don’t react or decompose easily? If so, I’d expect them to be benign to our biology.
It seems to be an ‘anti-beer’ article trying to alarm people over nothing substantive.
The dose makes the poison.
We can detect minute levels of substances far far below the dose which would be toxic.
So there are toxins in beer which might affect you of you drank a hundred gallons of beer a week for fifty years.
So what?
Coffee is the same in that regard.
No amount of sugar or cream can hide the bitter taste.
Alcohol is a toxic chemical....................
“So there are toxins in beer which might affect you of you drank a hundred gallons of beer a week for fifty years.”
I’m doomed!...................
Yah, my problem, too. If something is “forever” it does not decompose — perhaps into deadly byproducts. Unless it acts as a catalyst why worry?
Swallow a diamond. Your body will do nothing to it. So, ??
sounds like a “risk” looking for a grant. This is how CO2 hysteria started, I remember.
Teetotaler, here.......... if you don’t count the occasional drop of homemade vanilla extract in my evening coffee for medicinal purposes.
“In LA they filter sewer water for drinking water
San Diego does as well.
San Antonio takes treatment plant effluent and sends it through the nations largest purple pipe network for reuse ,in agriculture, cooling and industrial. The also inject some of it into one of their drinking water aquifers up dip and pump it out again later when they need it.
Dallas and Ft Worth both put all or most of their effluent into the Trinity River then down stream both cities have pumps to take Trinity River water out and put it in 2000-3000 acre constructed wetlands where it percolates to the other side and it’s then pumped back to Dallas drinking water source of Lake Lavon or FT W. To lake Lewisville where it’s turned into drinking water again. The rest flows down stream directly to Lake Livingston Houston’s primary water source.
The other North Texas cities of Frisco,McKinney,Richardson all send effluent outfall directly to Lake Lavon for reuse. The northern suburbs of Ft Worth discharge to a fork of the Trinity River and it gets picked up down stream at one of those wetlands for reuse.
Big Spring and Ft Stockton both do tertiary treatments and RO for direct toilet to tap recycling the first in the nation. Singapore has for years done toilet to tap via reverse osmosis.
Every one is already drinking recycled water one way or the other if you live down stream from some other city you are drinking partially effluent from their upstream outfall.
New Orleans is downstream from half a continents sewage and animal wastes they outfall to the MS River and there are still communities down stream from them that drink MS River water.
Austin is about to do exactly what Dallas and Ft Worth did and take Colorado River water down stream from both its treatment plants put it in a sand filter basin or RO it and use it directly probably both with aquifer injection for additional storage. Texas is going to double in population by 2050 we don’t have the water to double consumption so recycling is a must, along with desalination and probably interbasin transfer from the Mississippi River pumped west from the Old River control outlet where the Red River and MS meet there is virtually unlimited acre feet that can be diverted in the wet season westward. It’s a 70/30 split of all flows at that point now out and down the Atchafalaya basin sending a million acre feet per or more per year west is drops in the bucket. 1MM acre feet in a year is only 1380 cubic feet per second. The Old River control outlet is designed for a maximum flow of 700,000 cubic feet per second literally drops in the bucket to send Texas 1 or even 10 million acre feet per year which would be 13800 cubic feet per second.
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