I've just moved from the land of extract brewing [...] ( I dont mind paying the money)
Welcome to the land of all-grain brewing, where you'll need twice as much water as you did for extract brewing - so cost becomes a bigger factor.
You need the kind of water that is appropriate to the style of beer you want to make. Some styles can be made with a wide range of water. Some styles require a distinctive kind of water (for example: Pilsner Urquell requires very soft, almost distilled, water; Bass Ale (what they sell in England, not what ABIB now sells in the US) requires very hard, mineral-laden water.
Commercial breweries make the styles of beer that can be made with their local water with the minimum amount of treatment. Treatment costs money. Anheuser-Busch does NOT buy spring water at the grocery store.
So what water makes what style? If you're now doing all-grain, you should get a program like BeerSmith (
www.beersmith.com) or ProMash, or whatever. These programs have water profile tools, and you can see what the water in places like Milwaukee, Dublin, Pilsen, etc. is like, as well as figure out what you would have to do to match their water.
What's my water like? If you have "city water", you can ask your city or town or county water authority for a copy of their latest water analysis (and ask whether they use chlorine or chloramine as a disinfectant).
If you have a private well, the first question is whether you have a water softener, and if so, is it an ion-exchange system or a reverse-osmosis (RO) system. If RO (for your drinking water only) you basically have distilled water. Otherwise, you'll probably take a sample and get it analyzed, but that costs a couple hundred bucks for a full analysis.
I lucked out - we have well water, no softener, and the town of Warrenton VA has a large municipal well quite near our house, so I just use their analysis figures. Not perfect, but close enough.
My water is about "medium" for everything, and tastes fairly good. I added a small charcoal canister filter to my brewing rig, and replace it once a year.
My tastes run to Pale Ales and IPAs, so I make most of my beers with straight well water. If I want to make something very light (seldom), I have to buy 50% Deer Park or other spring water. If I want to make a Guinness-style or a Bass Ale-style, I add minerals (calculated with BeerSmith) to my well water to approximate Dublin and Burton-upon-Trent waters. The minerals you add are cheap, common things like Epsom salts and gypsum. Does it really make a difference? Maybe a little bit.
Here's how I'm making Rochester NY water - scroll down to the bottom
If your tap water tastes good, then use it!!!
There's no sense sending your hard-earned money overseas to Nestlé's Swiss bank account (Deer Park is owned by Nestlé, a Swiss company).
Dave
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Woodbridge city water - the
Prince William County website says that your water probably comes from the Occoquan Reservoir via Fairfax Water. Here's just about everything you could possibly want to know about your water!
Fairfax Water analysis