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Zoran Gojkovic and Garrett Oliver testing Carlsberg Fonio
A project with potential So how realistic is it to expect more beers to be brewed using fonio ? Is this the start of something or just a flash in a mash tun ?
Garrett feels positive . “ I think it ’ s very realistic that we ’ ll see more . There are already 700,000 tons of fonio grown in Africa annually .
There is no shortage of land upon which to grow it and you can ’ t really grow many other crops in those areas – it ’ s too arid and the soils are too poor .
He adds : “ In the past , fonio has been held back by the cleaning and de-hulling process , which was traditionally done by hand and required lots of strenuous physical labour .
“ As modern grain processing machinery is brought into play by Yolélé West Africa , the yield will almost double and the amount of labour required will be a tiny fraction of what it was in the past .”
Farmers can now spend their time and efforts farming and building their businesses , says Garrett , “ instead of engaging in subsistence-style practices ”.
The rest is very straightforward : “ For brewers , from craft brewers to huge international breweries , all we have to do is buy the grain , use it and make great beers from it .
“ Big international breweries don ’ t make any raw materials decisions lightly and they don ’ t tend to move as quickly as smaller brewers .
“ That ’ s one reason why it ’ s so great to have them involved here – they ’ re now studying fonio carefully and getting excited about what it can do .”
He concludes : “ I think that you ’ ll soon be seeing a lot more fonio beers on the shelves and not just from us and our collaborators ... and that ’ ll be the start of something big .
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