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While Garrett Oliver of Brooklyn Brewery and Vinnie Cilurzo of Russian River need little introduction, the grain they’ve grown fond of brewing with—an African millet known as fonio—may be unfamiliar to many brewers. In this episode, these two brewing legends discuss the grain’s background, as well as how and why they’ve used it in a series of new beers produced for the Brewing for Impact project. Along the way, Oliver and Cilurzo touch on:
- the limitations of our industrialized food system
- the history and nature of fonio
- fonio’s farming and climate benefits
- using fonio as a brewing component at various percentages
- fonio’s unusual amino acid–like bitterness
- its impact on free amino nitrogen (FAN) in finished beer and the implications for potential stability and longevity
- a basic step-mash regimen for a Belgian pale ale with fonio
- the Sauvignon Blanc–like flavors that fonio can produce
- nearly clear beer made from 100 percent fonio
And more.
As mentioned in the episode, Garrett Oliver has prepared an informative response for brewers interested in fonio:
"Here is the Q&A I’ve been sending out. This wasn’t written as a FAQ; it was originally a response to an email. But I’ve had so many inquiries that this piece has taken on a life of its own. I probably should update it into a more useful document, but it does seem to answer most people’s questions:
"We add fonio at the last saccharifacation step. It’s steamed and therefore pre-gelatinized."
How easy/hard is it to learn to brew with fonio? (ie: is it as simple as replacing barley with fonio, or more complicated than that..?)
"The fonio that we're using, from Yolele, is very easy to use in brewing. It's already been de-hulled, it requires no milling, and it's been pre-steamed, so the starch is already gelatinized. In the brewhouse you're basically rehydrating it and then going straight into saccharification. We usually add it during the last saccharication rest in the mash; we find that we get the best flavors and aromas that way. Some of our collaborating breweries have already done their first fonio brews and all the brew days have gone really well."
Fonio has a ‘nutty taste’ - what does fonio do to the taste of brews? (Would a drinker distinguish a fonio brew from a non-fonio brew and if so, what tastes different?)
"Fonio tastes "nutty" when eaten like couscous (which it resembles on the plate), but it doesn't really bring that flavor to beer. Instead it brings tropical fruity wine-like flavors reminiscent of sauvignon blanc and gewurztraminer - lychee fruit, gooseberry, mango etc. It also gives a soft, round, silky mouthfeel to beers. We're generally using it at 15% to 20% of the grist. The fonio "signature" flavors are always recognizable, and they don't seem to be yeast strain-dependent, so the flavors show up as strongly in lagers as they do with warmer fermentations. In a pale ale, those aromatics are a great compliment to dry hop aromatics; in a pilsner, they bring a really nice lilt of fruit to the profile. People often say “Wow, this kinda smells like white wine”, and they like that."
How easy/hard was it to convince all these other big namebrewers to get on board with fonio in your Brewing for Impact series?
"I was somewhat fascinated to see that it wasn't difficult at all! Once people tasted the beers and understood what a paradigm shift fonio could represent for brewing, everybody was interested. I think Carlsberg pretty much convinced themselves by making a 100% fonio beer that was fantastic - it's perfectly clear and has stone fruit flavors that are somewhere between Champagne and sake. We can't wait to see where they can take it. Guinness is already strongly engaged in Africa and is excited to learn more about what fonio can do. The thing about the big brewers is that they all have serious ESG (environment/sustainability/governance) goals, and fonio, given its total lack of inputs, aligns perfectly with what they want to do in the future."
Supply and demand: How easy is it to source fonio at the moment; and would this be easy to scale up? Does a big supply of fonio already exist? Or is it a question of creating the demand to encourage supply?
"At a current 700,000 tons per year, African fonio production massively outstrips 'sustainable barley' production, at least so far. The work that Yolele West Africa is doing will allow fonio to scale up in a big way, as they’re automatic the de-husking and cleaning of the grain, which was the big bottleneck in the past. The automation will also decrease processing losses from close to 50% when hand-cleaning to nearly zero with automated cleaning. Because fonio requires no irrigation, fertilizer, pesticides or fungicides, it makes land that has been considered “non-arable” productive. So there’s huge upside potential. Of course, without sufficient demand, we’re not going to see these resources developed, so there is a 'chicken and egg' dynamic here. By creating demand in the brewing space, we hope to kick-start the upscaling of production to levels where this is a crop that major international brewers can easily make part of their total grain portfolio, spreading risk, creating great flavors, lowering our environmental impacts and bringing economic security to thousands of smallhold African farmers."
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