Rice bran-based ingredients for the craft beer industry?

RiceBran Technologies (RBT) has completed the development of a series of new craft brewing ingredients containing stabilized rice bran to be marketed as ProRyza Brew. To put the new product to the test, RBT’s formulators have partnered with the master brewers at PicoBrew to replace certain existing grains used in the brewing process with RBT’s new line of ProRyza Brew ingredients.

PicoBrew was established in 2010, and its flagship product, the PicoBrew Zymatic, improves the precision, repeatability and overall quality of the beer-brewing experience, according to RBT. The company explained that it simplifies and automates the process of homebrewing allowing anyone to brew craft beer in the comfort of their own kitchen. The two companies have created a number of great tasting traditional and reduced gluten brewing recipes.

Click here to read our in-depth look at reduced gluten craft beers

“We are excited to work with PicoBrew as our first step toward entering this fast growing segment of the beer industry. PicoBrew’s Zymatic simplifies the homebrewing process and has enabled it to build a loyal, growing customer base of creative home brewmasters,” stated Richard Ray, ProRyza Brew project coordinator at RiceBran Technologies. “We are equally excited about the larger market potential for RBT in the craft beer industry. While the larger brewing companies traditionally use rice as a grain source, craft brewers have increasingly been seeking other carbohydrate alternatives for their formulations. Our ProRyza Brew line of ingredients are not only a great carbohydrate source, non-GMO and gluten free, but the oil in our bran also brings out more hops flavor. This should enable brewmasters to use less hops in their formulations and help reduce overall brewing costs.”

As our brewer readership knows, the craft beer industry has exploded in recent years with total sales increasing 20 percent in 2013 to reach over $14 billion. A fast growing subset of that market is homebrewing. According to the American Homebrewers Association, there are more than 1.2 million homebrewers producing more than 2 million barrels of beer annually in the United States alone. Of those 1.2 million homebrewers, approximately 60 percent have started brewing within the last nine years.

Mark McKnight, SVP of sales and marketing at RBT states, “In addition to targeting the homebrewer market with PicoBrew, we plan to aggressively market the benefits of our ProRyza Brew line of ingredients to small, medium and large craft brewers across the United States in 2015 as we seek to establish a significant presence in the craft beer industry in the years to come.”