Unsual beers: Brewery selling NEWBrew beer made out of sewage that 'goes down smoothly' and is 'good liquid' - can you buy it in the UK?

Small aqua and purple beverage cans sat conspicuously on a counter at the Singapore display. The cans are beer, made by a brand call NEWBrew from Singapore.

The beer is made with treated wastewater. NEWBrew is made with NEWater, the name of treated wastewater that's part of a national campaign to conserve every drop in one of the world’s most water-starved places.

The drink, which some attendees jokingly call “sewage beer,” is one of many examples of climate- and environment-related innovations on display during this year's COP29 talks in Azerbaijan. Highlighting the use of treated wastewater underscores one of the world's most pressing problems as climate change accelerates: providing drinking water to a growing population.

While drinking treated wastewater is a novelty for many at the climate conference, for Singaporeans it's nothing new. In 2022, then-Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong was famously photographed drinking a bottle of NEWater after a tennis match - to normalise its use.

Ong Tze-Ch’in, chief executive of the Public Utility Board, Singapore's national water agency, said NEWBrew was developed by a local brewery in 2018. The idea was to showcase treated wastewater at the country's biennial International Water Week. The beer was next produced in 2022, then again this year.

Peter Rummel, director of infrastructure policy advancement at Bentley Systems, which creates infrastructure engineering software, got a beer at the COP29 stall. He said: “It’s fresh, light, cool. It has a nice flavour”.

Wee-Tuck Tan, managing director of the local brewery, The Brewerkz Group, said they have made about 5,000 liters, or roughly 15,000 cans, for each edition of NEWBrew. He said they use the same process as with other beers, and the cost is also similar.

He added: “When put into a beer, it changes the mindset. Most people can't tell the difference.” On The Brewerkz Group website it displays an interview the BBC conducted with people trying the “sewage beer”. One man said the beer “went down smoothly” while another remarked that the beer was “good liquid”.

Can you buy the beer in the UK?

According to The Brewerkz Group website, NEWBrew is available at Brewerkz restaurants on-tap. Unfortunately the restaurants are only in Singapore. The beer was also being sold at supermarket chains NTUC FairPrice and Cold Storage but this was only from April to July. The Singapore-based brewer said that the beer was flying off the supermarket shelves.