Ricardo Irivarren was in the health-food business for quite some time when, in 2019, he tasted a quinoa beer for the first time as he dined at a Mexican restaurant in Orlando, Fla.
“Quinoa was one of the top products I was bringing to Canada,” says Irivarren, owner of recently opened Miski Brewing, and importer and distributor of Peruvian foods in Canada.
Irivarren’s encounter with quinoa-based beer happened at a time when he was looking for new market opportunities for the crop beyond traditional salads and smoothies.
“I thought that’s a cool idea and a nice way to use quinoa. So, I brought some bottles for lab tests at Niagara College," he says.
The lab results showed the beer consisted of only 10 per cent quinoa, which made Irivarren ask himself how that could ever be labelled as quinoa beer.
“That’s when I decided to partner with the Food and Beverage Innovation Centre (FBIC) to develop a gluten-free beer, 100 per cent made from quinoa," he adds.
Irivarren admits that it was a bit of a gamble at the time.
“We were pretty sure that it would be a good product, but the college had no previous knowledge about quinoa," he says.
Rodrigo Ribeiro, who was part of the product development team at the FBIC and now is operations manager at Miski Brewing, says it took two years and 18 prototypes to get it right.
“One of the challenges was the fact that there weren't references on gluten-free brewing with quinoa," he says.
Another challenge, Ribeiro explains, was finding substitutes for ingredients commonly used in brewing processes in order to certify the beer as gluten-free and vegan.
“We wanted it to look like beer, smell like beer and taste like beer. But we also wanted to achieve the certification, which made it even more difficult,” Irivarren says.
As for the manufacturing process, making beer from quinoa involves at least one different piece of equipment compared with traditional brewing with barley.
“Quinoa is a pretty fine grain that requires a special filtering unit," he says.
Irivarren says the quinoa mix used in the process was also customized.
“We developed a blend that includes other species along with the commonly known red, white and black quinoa," he adds.
Irivarren says there are quinoa beers in the market that use quinoa mixed with a barley or wheat and therefore can't be classified as gluten-free.
“And I’m not sure if there is another alcoholic beer that’s organic, kosher, vegan, and gluten-free altogether,” he adds.
In fact, Irivarren hopes his product will open doors beyond the dietary-restrictions markets.
“We want to make good beer which happens to be gluten-free, vegan or kosher, not the other way around," he says.
Miski Brewing started commercial sales of quinoa beer early July and is now in the process of getting the product listed throughout Ontario in LCBO stores.
“We believe that the product will be available at LCBOs in maybe three or four more weeks," Irivarren says.
Miski Brewing is currently serving its new brew in select restaurants. Customers can also pick up their four-pack, six-pack or 24 case at their production facility at 70 Ellis Dr., Unit 4, in south-end Barrie.
For more information about Miski Brewing, visit www.miskibrewing.com.
