“When we started Brewgooder in 2016, our vision was to use beer to build a better world,” said Alan Mahon, founder, on a video call. “Over the years, we’ve generated opportunities from the United Kingdom to different parts of the world.” Through its Brewgooder Foundation, Brewgooder estimates that it has impacted over 150,000 people, mostly with clean water initiatives. According to Brewgooder’s website, in 2018, it became the first Scottish brewery to become B-Corp certified.
Brewgooder’s latest efforts include fair trade sourcing, starting with the first full-time beer brewed with fonio, an ancient African grain and possibly the original cultivated cereal. Brewgooder first brewed with fonio as part of a collaboration with New York’s Brooklyn Brewery. While Brooklyn Brewery would go on to collaborate with other breweries around the world to promote fonio, Brewgooder is the first to add such a beer to its permanent lineup.
Brewgooder plans to brew between 2,000 and 3,000 hectolitres of Fonio Session IPA per year—the equivalent of between 560,000 and 845,000 12-ounce cans. Brewgooder estimates the new beer will annually contribute £2 million to the fairtrade economy.
To make this much beer, Brewgooder had to establish a new supply chain to ensure access to the grain. Working with Fairtrade Africa, Fairtrade Foundation UK and FLOCERT, Brewgooder is making Fonio Session IPA with fonio grown by Groupement des Producteurs de Fonio au Foutah, a farming cooperative based in Guinea which includes 67 farmers. With the help of the new beer and the new supply chain, those farmers may be able to produce up to ten times as much fonio than they currently do, impacting not only the farms, but their surrounding communities.
Brewgooder has also partnered with Terra Ingredients of Minneapolis and the Michigan State University to help the fonio cooperative with improving seed systems, strengthening gender-inclusivity, and boosting crop quality. The trio of organizations is aiming to develop stronger seed systems that help the fairtrade-certified cooperative in Guinea grow better crops while ensuring everyone has a chance to benefit from these advances.
As for the beer itself, approximately 10% of the grain used to make the beer is fonio, a proportion Brewgooder settled on having experimented with amounts varying from 5% to 12%. “You’ll 100% notice the difference between this and another session IPA,” said Mahon. “We’re trying to introduce this in a way where people get some exposure to a grain they didn’t know about before.” Mahon says fonio imparts flavors of candied oranges, cherries and Gewürztraminer grapes.
Accordingly to Mahon, the fonio supply chain has been purposefully overbuilt so that other brewers and food manufacturers can have access to the grain, which some consider to be a superfood. The WWF has named fonio one of its Future 50 Foods.
“We’ve done the hardest part,” said Mahon. “It’s great to be a category first, but not a category only.” Mahon hopes other breweries will make fonio beers to increase knowledge of the grain.