GULF SHORES — Big Beach Brewing in Gulf Shores is bringing back its collaboration with Gulf State Park with a new brew, the Rain Check Festbier, which turns rainwater into a refreshing beer for consumption.

The beer is the result of several years of discussions between Big Beach and Gulf State Park, dating back to the construction of the Gulf State Park Interpretive Center, which is Alabama's most environmentally friendly building, having been petal certified under the Living Building Challenge by the International Living Future Institute (ILFI), one of the most rigorous building standards in the world that grades buildings based on restorative impact on human and ecological communities.

The Interpretive Center is not connected to a municipal water or sewage system, such as the City of Gulf Shores. The water on-site comes from cisterns such as Big Blue, an 11,000-gallon tank that holds rainwater that is captured and collected at the Interpretive Center via rain chains, rain buckets and a series of pipes connected to the roof that flow and are stored in Big Blue.

After the water is collected, it runs through an intricate filtration system and treatment method, which includes smaller levels of filtration to remove any particles, a UV treatment and the addition of chlorine to kill off anything else that may linger. The collection and treatment process provides all the water for the facility, such as the drinking fountains as well as for the sinks and toilets.

According to Chandra Wright, director of environmental and educational outreach, it is the first commercial facility in the state of Alabama certified to treat rainwater into potable drinking water as well as only the third in the United States to do so.

Wright, who is a big fan of Big Beach, said the idea for a rainwater beer started several years ago when the Interpretive Center, which opened in 2018, was under construction. She got to tour other living buildings in the United States, including the Brock Environmental Center in Chesapeake, Virginia, which was one of the first to have a water treatment system similar to what the Interpretive Center has today.

As she was touring the facility, Wright recalled there was a poster in the water treatment room detailing a fundraiser where the center partnered with a local brewery to use rainwater in one of their beers.

"I got the idea that when we got our system up and running that we should partner with Big Beach and see if we could do the same thing," Wright said. "Took a little while to work through all the logistics and hoops of doing something like this, and we were finally able last year to do our first batch, a rain check festbier, for last year's Oktoberfest celebrations."

To make the beer, the rainwater is filled into a water tote, a container that holds around 275 gallons of water, and transported from the Interpretive Center to Big Beach Brewing, where brewers pump the rainwater into their brite tank system.

The Rain Check Festbier made its return during Big Beach Brewing's Oktoberfest celebration on Saturday, Sept. 26, in a lineup that now features 24 flavors after the brewery, which came under new ownership in 2025, doubled its tap capacity. General Manager Amber Dion said the beer has been well received and was among the most requested beers to bring back from last year.

It is an exclusive in-house product, so you can only get it at Big Beach Brewing, the only brewery on the island and Alabama Gulf Coast, at 300 E. 24th Ave. in Gulf Shores, and it will be available both on tap and in cans.

"(It's a) nod to our sustainability of the area and our conservation-conscious nature of Gulf Shores," Dion said. "...It's kind of a reuse, reduce, recycle project and a fun way for us all to consume, legally."

Chris Gadd, head brewer at Big Beach, described the Rain Check Festbier as refreshing but also a "little more fuller bodied" than an American light beer. Festbier is a modern Oktoberfest lager, lighter and more drinkable than traditional Märzen.

"I just appreciate that beer," Gadd said. "I think it just adds another element to Oktoberfest so people can look forward to two different types of beers. And it's a little more refreshing and sessionable, and then also there's the local component of it where someone like Chandra [Wright] and others who are really big fans of Big Beach Brewing and just the City of Gulf Shores have came up with this idea, and they worked with us to create this beer that's, again, very local, community minded."

"Everybody thinks it's so cool that we're using rainwater to make a beer," Wright said. "Obviously, if you have good water, you're going to have good beer. Good water is a good ingredient to have to make good tasting beer, and so we're able to kind of showcase what we're doing here in the park, raise a little awareness of what this facility is and what it's designed to do, and then also have a good beer to come out of it."