Food waste-fighting B-Corp beer brand Crumbs Brewing and historic Pilgrim Brewery have collaborated on Un-Wasted, a 2.5% ABV hazy American pale ale.
As far as they are aware, this is the first ever beer to be brewed by replacing 50% of the malt in the mash with breadcrumbs. They promise no compromise in taste or mouthfeel.
The collaboration came about over a pint between the Pilgrim and Crumbs teams at a beer festival.
Having spent many years brewing a range of beers using unsold bread, the Crumbs team knew a lot about bread and its characteristics in brewing. One of these was the fact it tends to be less efficient at contributing fermentable sugars to the brew versus regular malt. This led to the theory that using more bread in a brew could be a unique way of creating a lower-alcohol beer.
“The way we typically brew is to replace about 25% of the malt with breadcrumbs,” said Morgan Arnell, ‘chief crumber’ at Crumbs Brewing. “This is partly for practical reasons (bread is a notoriously tricky, gloopy ingredient to deal with in a mash), but also because bread simply isn’t as efficient as malt.
“We’ve always been intrigued by what would happen if you took the proportion of bread even higher. Would using more bread be practical and, because of the less efficient mash, could it be an interesting way to brew a lower alcohol beer?”
Pilgrim Brewery, established in 1982 and the oldest craft brewery in the South East, were willing to take up the challenge. Their head brewer, John Fridd, said: “I was really intrigued by the idea of brewing with bread and particularly pushing the boundaries of using it as an ingredient.
“We didn’t want to hold back, so Un-Wasted replaces 50% of the malt we’d typically use with sourdough bread rescued from our local baker, Chalk Hills. We put a few measures in place to deal with such an unusual mash, but it has been a real success, and I’m really pleased with the outcome.”
The resulting 2.5% ABV beer has been finished with Citra and Mosaic hops, giving it notes of mango, fresh berries, and stonefruit.
This initial trial brew is available in 330ml cans direct from the Crumbs Brewing or Pilgrim Brewery websites. It is also being made available on tap in Pilgrim Brewery venues the Taproom and The Hatch.
