Whenever you hear of an innovative project about food waste, UK campaigner Tristam Stuart is somehow involved. Here he strikes again bringing us the best thing since sliced bread.
Toast Real Ale is the UK’s first-ever bread to beer ale. Brewed by craft purveyors Hackney Brewery, the innovative and great tasting ale uses fresh, surplus bread otherwise thrown away by bakeries, delis and sandwich makers.
The brewing process of this fresh and unique beer is so simple you can brew it yourself at home. Bread is sliced, then mashed to make breadcrumbs ready for the brewing process. The pale ale is brewed with malted barley, hops and yeast, the bread adds caramel notes that balance the bitter hops, giving a malty taste similar to amber ales and wheat beers.
Toast is on a mission to prove that the alternative to waste is delicious. All proceeds from Toast Ale are donated to Tristram Stuart’s food waste charity Feedback – the people helping to put a stop to food waste.
Food waste statistics are shocking:
- Overall 1.3 billion tons of the food produced for human consumption is wasted every year.
- Nearly half (44%) of bread in the UK, including 24 million slices a year in homes, is thrown away.
- In the UK alone, we waste about 15 million tons of food with bread being the worst offender.
- Looking solely at calories, the number of bakery items wasted by UK households alone would be enough to lift 26 million people across the globe out of malnutrition.
With Toast Real Ale using a slice of bread in every bottle of expertly brewed beer, enjoying a cold one also helps you to do good. Celebrity fans embracing this innovative way to enjoy craft beer whilst helping to end food waste, include food waste champions Jamie Oliver and Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall.
Tristram Stuart said: “Tackling the global issue of food waste has taken me all over the world. It was at the Brussels Beer Project where I first found out about this innovative brewing process that turns a colossal global problem into a delicious, drinkable solution.
“We hope to put ourselves out of business. The day there’s no waste bread is the day Toast Ale can no longer exist.”
Jon Swain from Hackney Brewery said: “We absolutely jumped at the chance to join Feedback’s fight against food waste. The important thing for us, as brewers, was to create a beer that tasted good and stood up against other craft beers. We worked hard to brew a beer that wasn’t just a fad but something that people could enjoy time after time and would have a significant impact.”
Toast Real Ale has been created in partnership with the expert beer craftsmen at Hackney Brewery. The recipe, which has been lovingly created, is widely available to encourage the nation to start tackling its own bread waste.
Toast is available to buy at ToastAle.com with an RRP of £3.00. The list of stockists is growing every day as craft ale retailers, as well as pubs, bars and restaurants, join the bread to beer ale movement. Check out the website for a full list of stockists.
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