No that's not American beer rolling down the line, it really is water.

Except, Labatt, London's biggest and oldest brewery, isn't joking. The brewery switched off its beer taps Thursday and devoted the day to canning drinking water, according to its brew master Scott Durnin.

"It is the same water we use to make the beer," he said. "A lot of planning goes into this, so we will actually plan months in advance for today as our target date."

He said the plan was to make roughly 280,000 cans of drinking water.

'Water is essential for life'

Labatt Brewery in London, Ont. keeps an emergency supply of potable water to ship free of charge to disaster stricken communities in Canada that have had their water supply compromised. (Colin Butler/CBC News)

The water has been shipped to all parts of the country to be used by first responders and families in communities where drinking water has been compromised.

The company shipped drinking water to communities stricken by recent flooding in New Brunswick. It also shipped to Fort McMurray, Alberta during the 2016 incident that charred a large swathe of the city.

Durnin said the company also keeps a reserve, just in case a community in Canada needs a supply of potable water in the event of an emergency.

"Water is essential for life," he said.