GULF SHORES, Ala. — The rain that falls on the roof of Alabama’s greenest building is back in a glass. Big Beach Brewing in Gulf Shores has brought back its Rain Check Festbier, a seasonal lager brewed with rainwater collected and treated at the Gulf State Park Interpretive Center, as part of its Oktoberfest lineup.
The beer returned during the brewery’s Oktoberfest celebration on Saturday, Sept. 26, and is available only at Big Beach Brewing, both on tap and in cans.
Rain Check Festbier at a glance
- What: Rain Check Festbier, a modern Oktoberfest-style lager brewed with treated rainwater
- Partners: Big Beach Brewing and Gulf State Park
- Where to find it: Exclusively at Big Beach Brewing, 300 E. 24th Ave., Gulf Shores
- Formats: On tap and in cans
- Returned: Saturday, Sept. 26, 2026, at the brewery’s Oktoberfest celebration
A building that drinks the rain
The beer exists because of the unusual way the Gulf State Park Interpretive Center gets its water. The center, which opened in 2018, is Alabama’s most environmentally friendly building. It earned Petal certification under the Living Building Challenge, a program of the International Living Future Institute that is considered one of the most rigorous building standards in the world. The program grades buildings on their restorative impact on people and the environment.
The Interpretive Center is not connected to a municipal water or sewer system such as the city of Gulf Shores’. Instead, all of its water comes from rain. Rain chains, rain buckets and a network of pipes connected to the roof channel water into cisterns, including “Big Blue,” an 11,000-gallon storage tank.
From there, the water goes through a detailed filtration and treatment process. Several stages of filtration remove particles, a UV treatment step follows, and chlorine is added to kill anything that may remain. That system supplies all of the water used at the facility, from drinking fountains to sinks and toilets.
According to Chandra Wright, the park’s director of environmental and educational outreach, the Interpretive Center is the first commercial facility in Alabama certified to treat rainwater into potable drinking water, and only the third in the United States to do so.
An idea from a poster in Virginia
Wright, a self-described big fan of Big Beach, said the idea for a rainwater beer took root years ago, while the Interpretive Center was still under construction.
During that time, she toured other living buildings around the country, including the Brock Environmental Center in Virginia Beach, Virginia, one of the first facilities with a water treatment system similar to the one the Interpretive Center has today. In the building’s water treatment room, she noticed a poster about a fundraiser in which the center had partnered with a local brewery to make a beer with its rainwater.
“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.”
From cistern to brite tank
Making the beer starts with a trip down the road. The treated rainwater is pumped into a water tote, a container that holds about 275 gallons, and driven from the Interpretive Center to Big Beach Brewing. There, brewers pump the rainwater into their brite tank system to begin the brewing process.
A fan favorite returns
Big Beach General Manager Amber Dion said the Rain Check Festbier was well received last year and was among the most requested beers to bring back. It returns to a much larger lineup: the brewery, which came under new ownership in 2025, has doubled its tap capacity and now offers 24 beers.
Big Beach bills itself as the only brewery on the island and on the Alabama Gulf Coast beaches.
“(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.”
What does rainwater beer taste like?
Head brewer Chris Gadd described the Rain Check Festbier as refreshing but a “little more fuller bodied” than an American light beer.
Festbier is the style of lager served today at Munich’s Oktoberfest. It is lighter in color and more drinkable than the traditional Märzen, the amber, malt-forward lager long associated with the festival.
“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.”
Good water, good beer
Water makes up the vast majority of any beer, and brewers have long known that its mineral content affects flavor. Rainwater is naturally very soft, with few dissolved minerals, which gives brewers a clean slate. That quality is well suited to lighter lagers.
“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.”
Visiting the Interpretive Center
The Gulf State Park Interpretive Center is part of the park’s broader effort to teach visitors about the coastal environment and sustainable design. Exhibits and programs focus on the park’s ecosystems, from dunes and maritime forest to freshwater lakes, and on how the building itself was designed to generate its own energy and collect its own water. Gulf State Park, located between Gulf Shores and Orange Beach, is one of the most visited state parks in Alabama.
Beer lovers who want to try the Rain Check Festbier will need to visit Big Beach Brewing at 300 E. 24th Ave. in Gulf Shores, since the beer is not distributed elsewhere. As a seasonal Oktoberfest release, it is expected to be available for a limited time.
As always, those who drink should do so responsibly and arrange a sober ride home.