Making beer more sustainable

The Waite Research Institute and Coopers Brewery have teamed up to make beer production better for the environment.

The devastating effects of climate change––from food insecurity and environmental degradation to natural disasters like fires and floods––are driving international efforts to improve sustainability. While cars and coal are common targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and helping Australia reach its goal of net zero, researchers at the Waite Research Institute (WRI) are focusing on a different, often-overlooked contributor: beer. Joining forces with Coopers Brewery and plant-breeding research company Australian Grain Technologies (AGT), the researchers aim to make beer production both more sustainable and less expensive.

The brewing industry’s carbon footprint is two-fold: the agricultural demands of growing barley, which include fertilisers and energy-intensive machinery; and the kilning process for malting grain, which typically uses gas as an energy source and consumes large amounts of water. Professor Matt Tucker, WRI’s Director, says the institute’s research aims to address both aspects.

“We are examining how the malting process works now and what might change in the future, and assessing how we can make improvements by changing the raw materials that go into it,” he says.

“A lot of historical work has investigated barley quality and why barley is good for malting, but it’s still not well understood at the genetic level why some cultivars absorb water quickly while others do so slowly, or why some respond faster during kilning.”

The aim of the four-year project with Coopers, which has received funding through the Australian Research Council Linkage program, is to understand the basis for these differences between cultivars. Researchers are working with AGT to test how different varieties of barley perform in the lab-based micro-malting facility at the Waite Campus and to determine how they could be made more efficient during the malting process.

“By improving the barley cultivars that go into making beer, we can reduce the energy and resources needed for production, making it more sustainable and economical,” Tucker says.

This is just one of the projects WRI supports in sustainable beer production. Another, led by Dr Sue Stewart, explores ways to reduce the moisture content of the green malt at the end of germination, which would reduce gas emissions, as less gas would be required to dry a batch of malt during the kilning process.

"Current research has shown that the water uptake and drying rates differ between barley varieties, meaning that the choice of variety could significantly impact how efficiently moisture can be reduced during germination,” Stewart says.
“Our work aims to identify the varieties that reduce moisture content more effectively at the end of germination, streamlining the malting process and ultimately reducing energy use."

What’s next?

Since its inception two years ago, the University of Adelaide & Coopers Brewery (UACB) Low-input Malt Laboratory has generated a raft of preliminary data and modernised methods. The Waite Research Institute will focus the next two years on continuing to share findings with the brewery and crop breeders.

“We can combine our expertise in barley grain quality, malting, and genetic analysis to give breeders insights into what to select for in new barley varieties and provide Coopers with information on how different barleys suit their processing methods,” Tucker says.

The institute also sees potential to expand its impact on sustainable beer research globally.
“We are looking for different types of barley that can be grown in different regions, particularly South Australia, that could then be used here or exported overseas with a value-added property in that they can be malted with less energy input,” Tucker says.

Stewart says that while the institute’s dedication to sustainable beer production has clear technical goals, it’s also part of a bigger picture.

“Our climate is changing, and we need to be aware that people are researching ways we can help our planet, with projects such as these.”