Innovative beer-brewing of typical, old and healthy wheat varieties to boost their spreading

Abstract

Certain typical old wheat varieties grown in the Mediterranean countries and elsewhere are renowned for their nutritional value due to higher concentration of polyphenols, especially flavonoids, as well as of important minerals, than modern varieties. However, the respective economical sustainability is constrained by reduced yield, increasing costs and stagnating or decreasing market prices. Moreover, under certain conditions, connected with the respective scale and local market volume, low-input, organically grown cereals can lead to lower environmental footprint. Brewing with a portion of such old grains can effectively boost their spreading, conditioned on its ability to supply a significant additional net income to farmers. Beer has become the worldwide most consumed alcoholic beverage and, although its market is dominated by few global players and standardized products, craft breweries have quickly spread out in most countries. Nevertheless, a scale issue has arisen about the economic sustainability of microbreweries, mainly due to high initial capital investment, energy costs, scale, and sometimes taxation. It is shown how breakthrough, cheaper, more efficient and profitable microbreweries can help solving the sustainability issues affecting old wheat varieties, thus boosting the respective spreading, lowering the environmental footprint of the cereal sector and contributing to improve the public health.