Danish beer uses grain fertilized by human urine

COPENHAGEN, Denmark (WTHR) - A Danish brewery is drawing on 50,000 liters of urine collected from the largest music festival in northern Europe in producing a novelty beer aimed at the more adventurous drinker.

The beer is named "pisner" - a play on the word pilsner and common slang term for urine.

The finished product contains no human waste, but is produced from fields of malting barley fertilized with human urine rather than traditional animal manure or factory-made plant nutrients.

"We are a craft brewery out of Copenhagen and about four years ago we converted into organic,” explained Henrik Vang of the brewer, Norrebro Bryghus. “So all our beers are organic today. We thought it would be a great idea also to go into recyclable beer. So we want to test our brewers and test our opportunities to make recyclable beer."

Using human waste as fertilizer on such a scale is a novelty, according to Denmark’s agriculture and food council, which came up with the idea for what could be the ultimate sustainable hipster beer and has already named the concept "beercycling".

The 50,000 liters collected from that festival resulted in enough malting barley to brew around 60,000 bottles of Pisner.