Singapore brewery makes beer from wasted sourdough bread

Singapore-based brewery Brewerkz is swapping ingredients with local bakery chain Baker & Cook to develop the third brew in its “sustainable beer” series, as db hears.

The craft brewery has teamed up with the Singapore bakery chain, swapping surplus ingredients to make both a new brew and a new bake.

Brewerkz has used surplus sourdough bread from Baker & Cook to brew its new EarthBrew Sourdough Pale Ale, while Baker & Cook uses upcycled brewers spent grains from Brewerkz to bake its NEWGrain+ Sourdough.

Wee-Tuck Tan, co-owner and managing director of Brewerkz, told the drinks business: “This is our third sustainable beer collaboration, and our first sustainable food product using brewers’ spent grains.”

The first was NEWBrew, made in collaboration with Singapore’s Public Utilities Board (PUB), and made with high-grade recycled water. The second was a certified carbon neutral beer series called the Islander Brew made in collaboration with Sentosa, an island resort off Singapore’s southern coast.

“We were looking to expand on this series of sustainable beer and had in mind to work with a bakery to use their surplus bread to make a beer, and for the bakery to make a bread using spent grains from our brewing,” Tan explained.

“Baker & Cook was a natural choice as they are a well known local artisanal bakery, and a local brand like us. When we shared the idea with them, they embraced it very quickly because they were already thinking about the same kind of collaboration.”

Bread is collected from supermarkets and online delivery platforms. Once collected, the bread is toasted and mixed in with the grain bill before the brewing process begins.

For every 2,500 litres of beer, approximately 180 kilograms of surplus sourdough bread is used. The toasted sourdough makes up 20% of the beer’s grain bill.

To make the bread, fresh spent grains — the residual by-product of Brewerkz’s beer brewing process — are added at the beginning of the sourdough-making process. Each loaf of bread contains 64g of NEWGrain+ or 30% of the baker’s flour recipe.

The two products also making the perfect pairing, according to Tan. “At our restaurants, we created a BBQ pulled-pork bruschetta, and an avocado crab bruschetta using the NEWGrain+ sourdough. They have been getting fantastic reviews especially paired with the Earthbrew Sourdough Pale Ale,” he said.

EarthBrew Sourdough Pale Ale and NEWGrain+ Sourdough will be exclusively available at Brewerkz and Baker & Cook.

Brewerkz developed the collaboration to reduce food waste as part of its sustainability mission.

The new brew was launched earlier this month at the Brewnanza Fest 2023, a craft beer festival held at Bayfront event space, to a positive reception from consumers. “We’ve had very good reviews for the beer and people are pleasantly surprised when they learn of the backstory, and how it is not so complicated at all to create circular food and drinks product,” Tan said.