Real (RBW) and synthetic brewery wastewater (SBW) were treated by aqueous phase reforming (APR) with different 3%Pt/C catalysts for H-2 production from the biomass-derived organic load. APR enabled simultaneous treatment of the wastewater and valorisation to H-2 and alkanes of the biomass-derived organic load. In the catalytic APR of SBW, TOC and COD removal was higher than 60% after reaction time of the experiments. The addition of KOH or NaOH to SBW resulted in a slightly lower TOC and COD removal, however higher yields to H-2 and percentage of valuable gases were obtained in those cases where KOH was added. Catalyst with basic support and low contribution of micropores showed the best performance in the APR of SBW + KOH (similar to 50% of H-2 and 8.9 mmol H-2/g COD). The concentration of anions detected in the liquid effluents varied with the catalysts tested and with the concentration of base, suggesting different reaction pathways. Increasing the concentration of KOH led to CO2-free H-2 without significant changes in H-2 yield. The results obtained with RBW were in good agreement with those from SBW, although the significantly different behaviour of some catalysts suggests the need of tuning their properties according to the composition of the wastewater. (C) 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.