Asahi's beer to be brewed with Aussie barley

Asahi Beverages has announced it will overhaul its supply chain to source barley directly from Australian farmers for the first time in decades, with the first batch of beers using the barley expected to roll off the lines next month.

The new supply chain will give Asahi Beverages, which owns Carlton & United Breweries, clear oversight of the barley-growing process to brew beers such as Victoria Bitter, Carlton Draught, Great Northern and Pure Blonde.

Asahi Beverages’ Group Chief Brewer Jaideep Chandrasekharan said the move marks an important change for the company’s national operations and for the dozens of farmers it will purchase from.

“Under the old model the grains we purchased generally weren’t segregated, but this program allows us to track the provenance of barley used to brew our major beers and gives us direct relationships with more farmers.”

Under the new deal, barley purchased direct from farmers will travel from farms to breweries in Yatala, Queensland, or Abbotsford, Victoria, before being shipped across Australia as beer.

More than 30 Victorian farmers in the barley-growing hubs of the Wimmera and the Mallee have been engaged, with their 30,000 tonnes of barley sent to the Abbotsford Brewery once it has been malted.

Seven farmers from southern NSW will supply 40,000 tonnes of barley to Asahi’s Yatala Brewery in Queensland once it has been malted. Northern NSW growers are expected to join the scheme before this year’s harvest. The first beers using the directly purchased barley will be brewed at both Abbotsford and Yatala in April.

Chandrasekharan said the barley farmers will adhere to the company’s strict quality program, which monitors quality parameters such as protein levels and grain size, and links on-farm practices to beer quality.

“We will also track water use and other agricultural inputs to ensure our barley helps us achieve our sustainability targets,” he said.

“Until recently, the expertise to develop and maintain an intricate program like this at scale didn’t exist in Australia, but we’re now working with supply chain managers Origin Trail and Pure Grain to bring it to life.”

Image credit: ©stock.adobe.com/au/Pixel-Shot