4 days ago
By brewing with 100 percent quinoa, Meli is ‘giving beer a wellness makeover'
'That beer in Peru didn't have the typical characteristics that I associated with beer,' says Oster. 'The flavor was crisp and light, with none of the malty or bitter aftertaste that I had come to expect of beer. I also loved the health halo of a beer made from quinoa — it caught my attention and drew me in, when I normally wouldn't have been interested in drinking a beer.
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'The only issue was that the beer in Peru contained barley, and I was reducing gluten from my diet.'
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Oster set out to brew a 100 percent quinoa beer.
'The first challenge we encountered at homebrew-scale was what type of quinoa to use. Quinoa exists in red, black, and white varieties, and quinoa grown in one part of the world has completely different nutritional features than quinoa from other parts of the world. So, identifying a quinoa that both tasted good and efficiently produced an alcoholic beverage was a challenge,' says Oster.
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It took more than 20 test batches to brew a beer that satisfied those requirements. And then another challenge arose: because quinoa is such a small grain, adapting a recipe to fit commercial brewing equipment wasn't straightforward. It took nearly 100 formulations, according to Oster, to get it right.
Brew Theory Brewery in Lowell currently brews Meli. The beer is gluten-free, has zero sugar, and contains the proteins and essential vitamins and minerals such as iron and B6 typically found in quinoa. A can of Meli even contains about 7 percent of your daily potassium.
One noticeable aspect of the beer is that it tastes a little spicy, the result of using an herbaceous grain rather than the typical barley. Meli is light and crisp, like Oster says, and should make an interesting pairing with all kinds of food.
Oster is 'committed to winning in our own backyard,' meaning Massachusetts. Meli beer is available at select restaurants including Uni, Catalyst, Alma Nove, and Shy Bird, as well as at Trader Joe's and Whole Foods.
Gary Dzen can be reached at
