‘Hold My Beer’: MN Craft Brews May Have These PFAS ‘Forever Chemicals’ (2025)

The chemicals have been detected in Minnesota drinking water supplies and could affect the craft beer industry.

Posted Fri, May 9, 2025 at 9:11 am CT

“Hold My Beer: The Linkage Between Municipal Water and Brewing,” the study by the independent scientific research group RTI International and published in the journal Environmental Science & Technology, found about 18 percent of U.S. breweries operate in ZIP codes with detectable levels of PFAS.

PFAS — per- and polyfluoroalkyl chemicals — are used in a wide variety of products and are called “forever chemicals” because they don’t easily break down in the environment. They are used in thousands of household and industrial products, including everyday household cleaners, health and beauty products, plastic packaging, carpets and other textiles, professional firefighting foam and more.

PFAS have been linked to a range of health issues, including cancers, reproductive issues, and liver and thyroid problems.

Nearly half of U.S. municipal water supplies have detectable levels of PFAS, according to a study by the U.S. Geological Survey. Municipal water systems in Minnesota with detectable levels of PFAS in their water supplies are found in Twin Cities metro area.

About 90 percent of beer by volume is water. The study found beers brewed near known PFAS contamination sites had significantly higher PFAS concentrations, but some level of PFAS were found in nearly all the beer samples tested. The most commonly found compounds were linked to firefighting foam and industrial runoff.

The study also revealed that some of the beers evaluated had PFAS levels that exceeded the Environmental Protection Agency’s drinking water Maximum Contaminant Limits, or MCLs.

Jennifer Hoponick Redmon, the lead author of the study and the senior director of environmental health and water quality at RTI, said in a news release that the study highlights the need for broad, coordinated action to reduce PFAS in water supplies.

She outlined steps local breweries can take to “make future happy hours relatively safer and healthier” in the future, including asking local utilities to provide PFAS testing data, upgrading their filtration systems, reassessing water sources and using clean-in-place best practices to prevent PFAS from entering beer through contaminated water used in cleaning and sanitation.

Most people in the United States have been exposed to PFAS and have the chemicals in their blood, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The agency noted that certain PFAS blood levels are declining with reduced production and use of certain products.

Last year, the Environmental Protection Agency finalized landmark drinking water standards that establish strict limits on PFOA and PFOS, two of the most toxic of the forever chemicals. However, President Donald Trump’s Jan. 20 executive order placed a freeze on any new federal regulations.