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Music

A Danish Brewery Is Making Beer With 13,000 Gallons of Music Festival Piss

Denmark's Agriculture and Food Council​ gives the endeavor a thumbs up, calling it "beercycling"—but would you drink it?
Photo courtesy of Wikipedia Commons.

A Copenhagen-based microbrewery, Nørrebro Bryghus, has used 50,000 liters (13,200 gallons) of urine collected at Roskilde festival to produce a new beer, which it calls "Pisner." The Danes fertilized fields of malted barley with the pee in the Spring of 2016 in lieu of animal manure or factory-produced plant nutrients, reports Drinks Business.

Denmark's Agriculture and Food Council has described the process as "beercycling," and approved of its sustainability. The brewery will be able to produce around 60,000 bottles of Pisner with the pee it has collected.

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"When the news that we had started brewing the Pisner came out, a lot of people thought we were filtering the urine to put it directly in the beer and we had a good laugh about that," said the Chief Executive of brewer Nørrebro Bryghus, Henrik Vang. The project was first announced back in 2015.

The brewing process for Pisner began in March of this year, and it will be available to drink starting next month. This begs an important question, though—is this something you'd even want to drink? We polled some THUMP staffers to find out.

Josh Baines, Editor, THUMP UK: If Bear Grylls can squeeze camel dung for sustenance, I can sup on some pissbrau to get through a Lee Burridge set.

Colin Joyce, Managing Editor: I have no qualms about drinking something fertilized with human waste (it's sterile…or something) but I don't like gimmicky beers. One room temperature Budweiser please.

Michelle Lhooq, Features Editor: Hell no, never been into water sports.

Josh Baines (again): If you blindfolded me and asked me to decide between the usual light beer served in a paper cup and a glass of my own piss, I honestly wouldn't be able to tell the difference.

David Garber, Associate Editor: Is it gluten free? Asking for a friend.

Emilie Friedlander, Editor-in-Chief: I don't drink beer, so no (phew).

Max Mertens, Editor, THUMP Canada: Hard pass.

Trey Smith, VICE Social Editor: Hell no.

Koen van Bommel, Editor, THUMP Netherlands: I would—eventually, if I was at that festival. I mean, you gotta drink something, right?

To read more about how Pisner came to be, head over to Munchies.

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