Emerald Republic using brewery equipment to give away purified water for the needy

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One of Pensacola's newest breweries is utilizing its own brewing equipment to give back gallons of purified water to those in need during the coronavirus pandemic. 

Emerald Republic Brewing Co. owner Phil Zayas came up with the idea over the weekend to provide fresh water produced by his brewery's reverse osmosis water system. 

Anyone who walks into the 1414 W. Government St. brewery can request up to 10 gallons of water per person as long as they bring in their own containers to store it. Zayas just asks for a $1 donation to help maintain the system's costs. 

"If you go to the grocery stores right now, people are buying up everything left and right," Zayas said Monday. "Hygiene products obviously being big ones, cleaning supplies, sanitation supplies but also water."

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Emerald Republic's self-replenishing reverse osmosis water system produces roughly 1,000 gallons of water per day. The chemically pure water is void of dissolved solids, chlorine and odor. They use it in the craft beer-making process.  

Zayas said their system brings their water's total dissolved solids count down to zero. 

"We have friends with children with special needs, infants that require A.R. formula and different things that they can't get because they require specialized water. Distilled or reverse osmosis water, very soft water," Zayas said. "People with medical devices also require water that's as pure as possible for some of their machinery. And they can't find it right now." 

Since notifying the public of their giveback efforts through social media Sunday, Zayas has yet to have someone come in and take advantage of the system. He said maybe that's a good sign.

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"We just want to offer it to people so they know if they are in absolute true need, that they have somewhere they can get it from," he said. 

The brewery has just a handful of rules to be aware of when it comes to this concept. They are listed below, verbatim, via the brewery's Facebook post: 

"A couple of rules - 1) until we know the need of our community we are going to have to cap the fills at 10 gallons per person per day. 2) We ask a $1 donation for every five gallons which will help us in maintaining the reverse osmosis system’s maintenance costs - membrane filters, water softeners and much more are all involved in making (reverse osmosis) water. 3) We ask for honesty in your actions and that we try to keep this for those in need and 4) we ask that you provide your own water vessels as we are unable to provide anything for you to bring it home in."

"All businesses, all people, should figure out some type of way to keep the calm," Zayas said. "I think giving back to people is something everyone can do to take away as much stress as possible until we all get through this." 

Emerald Republic is open from 4 to 10 p.m. Monday through Thursday, noon until midnight Friday through Saturday and noon until 10 p.m. every Sunday. 

Jake Newby can be reached at jnewby@pnj.com or 850-435-8538.