A Southern California brewery has successfully tested a beer using treated sewage water.

Stone Brewing, a large craft brewing operation headquartered in Escondido, presented its Full Circle Pale Ale to curious customers at an event Thursday in San Diego.

The new ale is made using recycled, treated sewage water and is part of San Diego’s plan, ‘Pure Water San Diego,’ to get a third of its water from recycled sources by 2021.

And the verdict for the brew, which some have dubbed ‘toilet to tap,’ seemed to be quite positive, SF Gate reported.

San Diego mayor Kevin Faulconer told the Times that the brew was ‘fantastic’ and added: ‘There’s no better way to highlight the purity of this water.’

Other patrons said the brew was ‘outstanding’ and ‘delicious.’

Stone Brewing’s Senior Manager of Brewing and Innovation, Steve Gonzalez, created the beer and said that he was doubtful at first.

But all doubts were dispelled when he tried his brew.

He told ABC 10: ‘Among the pale ales that I’ve made, it’s probably in the top three.’

The beer was made with three malts and three hops and has ‘caramel’ and ‘tropical fruit’ notes.

The recycled water only needed some salts before brewing.

The brewery is used to using different water sources – which in turn have different properties – following California’s extreme drought conditions.

Stone Brewing hopes to make the Full Circle Pale Ale available soon.

As a footnote, their recycled water is significantly cleaner than the water which is used for brewing in many parts of the world where the only water sources are from contaminated streams or lakes.

Given modern water treatment technologies like those used in most of North America and Europw ther is little reason why this cannot be widely replicated.  But probably  don’t use the claim that “its the water” which flavours your beer.