Quinoa Beer Product Development
Challenge:
Miski Brewing is a family-owned company based in Barrie, Ontario that was born as a subsidiary of its parent company, Miski Organics, to take over its new beer production. Miski specializes in importing and processing dry goods, mainly superfoods, from Peru. As a Canadian agri-food company, their core values include environmental sustainability, organic, and fair-trade. Noticing a market gap in the beverage industry, Miski came to Niagara College with a goal to create an innovative, organic gluten-free beer based on quinoa.
Solution:
The Food & Beverage Innovation Centre assisted by conducting several trials to optimize the quinoa beer-making process, followed by the evaluation of the beer-making process at a larger scale. This included evaluation of specialized processing equipment acquired for this purpose. The research team scaled up production trials at the Niagara College Teaching Brewery and then conducted multiple sensory analysis sessions.
Miski has since hired two of the brew students (now graduates) who worked on this project: one as their Head Brewer and the other as their Operations Manager. They built their own, 6,000 square-foot brewing facility in Barrie and launched their flagship product – Ancestral Quinoa Beer – in July 2023. Their beer is organic, kosher, vegan and gluten-free certified.
This project has been made possible through funding sources including the Natural Sciences & Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), and the Tech-Access Canada Interactive Visit program.
