The beer was brewed until the 1980s in Tumwater, Washington (adjacent to Olympia) using artesian water, or so the brewery claimed. Today that beer brand is brewed in Southern California.
From the time I was a small child I remember people talking about artesian water, and until I was almost an adult I believed that it was somehow different from standard surface water or the water coming out of the tap. Advertising, including that for a popular brand of beer in the Puget Sound region, suggested that somehow artesian water tasted better or was more healthful. Based on marketing for Fiji water, a widely distributed brand of bottled water, that misconception persists. In fact artesian is a description of the source and not of the water itself. Artesian water can be almost pure or nearly saturated with chemicals. Its primary trait is that it came from an underground aquifer where water is under pressure. When the aquifer comes to the surface a flowing or artesian well occurs. Many springs are of this sort.
A diagram of an artesian system where ground water is under pressure and rises to the surface when there is an opening. Source: http://www.littledippers.com/geocaching/ArtesianWell.jpg
Artesian wells are often a selling point for a property, especially a large property to be used for grazing where permanent surface water is distant or rare. In arid areas artesian seeps and wells are often the only source of water for many kilometers and thus are especially prized. In a later posting I plan to write a little about Australia's Great Artesian basin. The intense aridity of the outback would preclude almost all human use in many areas were it not for the water the artesian flow provides.
Artesian wells are but one aspect of ground water, a topic about which I shall have a great deal to say.
