Peter Miller, the co-founder of the regenerative agriculture organization Sustain-A-Grain, wants to show me a photo. The image depicts two neighboring patches of land. One was used to cultivate wheat, and it’s a mess: The field was tilled and left fallow after harvest, and two inches of rainfall have turned it into a muddy morass. The adjacent patch grows Kernza, a perennial, deep-rooted grain that was first bred by the Land Institute, a nonprofit research, education, and policy organization dedicated to sustainable agriculture. Next to the pockmarked mud, the field of Kernza looks lush with life.
“I think people don’t quite understand the amount of damage being done by something as boring as wheat,” Miller says.
Cereal grains that make up the bedrock of modern beer, such as barley and wheat, are annual plants, which means they must be planted anew each year. Rather than serving as the basis for mature, diverse ecosystems, these crops extract nutrients from the soil, and can be enormously labor-intensive and resource-thirsty to cultivate. “Tilling soil each year leads to soil erosion and the loss of stored carbon, while the fertilizer applied to fields leaches into water bodies, threatening drinking water and ecosystems, and can also escape into the atmosphere as nitrous oxide gas, the third most important contributor to climate change,” writes Ula Chrobak in Undark.
Barley and wheat are also vulnerable to erratic weather patterns. Already, harvests of these staple grains have been disrupted across the world, putting the beer industry—and the wider wellbeing of humanity—in jeopardy. For proponents of experimental, perennial grains, products like Kernza might be a revolutionary solution, one that could support brewers and maltsters while also preventing soil erosion, restoring soil nutrients, and anchoring local ecological communities.
But these nascent crops are not without their challenges—both for the farmers who cultivate them and for the brewers who seek to use them.
The wild wheatgrass species that was eventually bred to be Kernza originated at the intersection of Europe and Asia, between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea. In 2003, it was brought to the Land Institute where, under the guidance of Dr. Lee DeHaan, it went through a selective breeding program. As successive generations of the plants matured, scientists continued selecting the top specimens for further breeding, taking into account yield, seed size, disease resistance, and other traits. The result of that nearly 20-year-long cycle, which is still ongoing, is the trademarked Kernza.
The Land Institute, founded in 1976, is a nonprofit research organization that works to displace the industrial system of agriculture, and seeks to provide staple grains without compromising the ecology we all depend on. President emeritus Wes Jackson, who was awarded a MacArthur “Genius Grant” in 1992, is widely recognized as a leader in the sustainable agriculture movement. The Kernza project came from his vision.
“To compare the microbiome of a perennial to an annual is like fast food to a whole grain diet. You get a much more robust, healthy, carbon-sequestering, soil-building environment with a perennial.”
As proponents of perennial grains, The Land Institute supports returning to a more traditional way of managing land, one which could limit the degradation of important ecosystems. Thanks to some breakthroughs in both Kernza yield volume and seed size in 2015, the organization was able to establish partnerships with Patagonia Provisions and the University of Minnesota, and expand acreage. Farmers began planting Kernza independently of direct research in 2017. Today, there are around 4,000 acres of Kernza (yielding over 600,000 pounds of grain) planted in the United States, with the majority in Minnesota, Kansas, and Montana. “There will probably be another two to four thousand acres planted this fall,” says Tammy Kimbler, director of communications at The Land Institute.
Kernza is inspired by the idea of diverse perennial prairies, Kimbler says, or temperate and flat stretches of grasses and wildflowers, buzzing with insects and a diversity of life. This, she says, is what nature favors, and the soil that supports that kind of ecological health is reliant upon perennial plants. “To compare the microbiome of a perennial to an annual is like fast food to a whole-grain diet,” Kimbler says. “You get a much more robust, healthy, carbon-sequestering, soil-building environment with a perennial.”
One environmental advantage of perennials like Kernza is their root systems, which grow up to 10 feet deep, and spend years developing in the soil (Kernza needs to be replanted only every five years or so). “Having a living root in the ground all year is tremendous,” says Kimbler. Deeper roots mean a better drought tolerance, which will be important as the climate emergency continues to cause extreme weather events. But perhaps the most significant benefit is preventing damage to the soil, and mitigating erosion.
“Farmers see their topsoil disappearing,” says Sustain-A-Grain’s Miller. Water and wind erosion deplete soil more quickly than it can be naturally restored, and the rigors of tilling-based, large-scale agriculture hasten that depletion. Iowa, the state with the worst topsoil erosion in the country, can lose a dump truck’s worth of soil per two acres annually, Miller explains, and the wider picture is no less disturbing. “This number is easy to say and impossible to imagine,” he says. “In the last 150 years we have lost a third of our topsoil.”
This explains why Miller says that he has not found it difficult to convince farmers to give perennials like Kernza a try, a sentiment which Kimbler echoes. “What they really need right now are more diverse crops, more diverse cropping systems, and more ability for them to adapt their practices on their unique piece of land, unique climate, and economic and social situation,” she says. “They just need a lot more options.”
One of those farmers is Anne Schwagerl at Prairie Point Farm in western Minnesota. For Schwagerl, who was already growing organic grains on her farm, the leap to Kernza was a natural fit. She started growing Kernza in 2020, planting a 40-acre field. It’s like “a layer of armor” for the soil, she says of the plant.
From a process point of view, incorporating Kernza into her routines wasn’t especially difficult, Schwagerl says, as she is able to treat it similarly to her organic small grains. At harvest time, “[W]e usually will swath the oats. We’ll cut them first … and lay them down in a windrow before we come back and pick it up with our combine. Not everyone does that anymore, especially in conventional agriculture,” she explains, noting that farmers who spray their crops can straight-cut them with a combine.
At present, waiting for a solid customer base to form around Kernza is perhaps the most challenging aspect for farmers like Schwagerl. “We’re learning, kind of the hard way, that buyers need time to perform their own research and development,” she says. It’s a slow process. “That’s been kind of a challenge: managing the development of this crop, the growth of this crop, with the realities of the value chain.”
But even while waiting for consumer sentiment to build, working with Kernza has already translated to savings for Schwagerl’s farm. “We’re not putting diesel in our tractors for extra passes over the field,” she says. “It’s a cost-effective crop to have in the ground.”
“We’re learning, kind of the hard way, that buyers need time to perform their own research and development. That’s been kind of a challenge: managing the development of this crop, the growth of this crop, with the realities of the value chain.”
Incorporating Kernza into a brewhouse context also requires a period of experimentation and troubleshooting. “The main barrier for brewers is one that we have now overcome, and that has been the size of the kernel,” says Miller. He explains that brewers have sometimes run into trouble when using their own roller mills, due to the size and shape of Kernza, which resembles wild rice. Sustain-A-Grain has been selling cracked Kernza to make it easier for brewers, and is working on R&D for malted Kernza. “We have a lot of requests for that,” Miller says. “We’re sprinting to get that done.”
For brewers to be able to use larger quantities of Kernza in a grain bill, the grain would need to be malted, but its small kernel size can make it hard to work with in the malthouse. “Some of these perennials that have been shown to us simply don’t have the kernel size that’s adequate to even perform inside our machines,” says Dave Green, CEO at Skagit Valley Malting.
While Green had some challenges with Kernza, he had much better results with malting another perennial that was developed just a few blocks away from his facility.
That perennial is Salish Blue, which was developed by the Washington State University Bread Lab. Green has worked closely with the lab for some time, he says. “Often, they bring us into the conversation when they have enough seed put together—then oftentimes, we’ll run a pilot batch and test the capabilities of that grain to be malted.” This is what happened with Salish Blue, and Green says that it has performed as well as any other wheat he has ever used.
Salish Blue is a cross between domesticated wheat and wild wheatgrass. Robin Morgan, who specializes in the Bread Lab’s perennial program, explains that the intent is for Salish Blue to resemble wheat in every aspect. “We want seed size, we want yield, we want disease resistance,” he says. “What we want to do is breed for nutrition, breed for flavor, breed for color,” adds Janine Johnson, who oversees special projects at the Bread Lab. “Heck, I’ll say it, we breed for beauty sometimes.”
Salish Blue is certainly distinct in that regard. Its stalks can reach four or five feet high, as described in an NPR story, and its name comes from the fact that “some of the seeds are blue instead of red or white like traditional wheat.” Plus, Johnson points out that it can yield up to two tons per acre. “Along with our breeding trials, we are currently growing 200 acres of Climate Blend perennials as a seed increase this year in Washington and the Northern Plains,” she says.
“We’re working with climate change. We’re building soil, instead of depleting it.”
Partnerships are underway for the Bread Lab. Currently, it’s working with a regenerative farmer with the goal of converting hundreds of thousands of acres of Northern Plains farmland to certified regenerative land over the next five years, using perennial and multicolor wheats from the breeding program. “We’re working with climate change,” Johnson says. “We’re building soil, instead of depleting it.”
At Skagit Valley Malting, Green counts himself lucky to have so many farmers dedicated to sustainable agriculture in the county. “We have some very sophisticated growers,” he says. “They are very much involved in improving soil health. That’s the future of their farm.”
“Industrial agriculture doesn’t work well,” says Sandy Boss Febbo, owner and brewer at Bang Brewing in St, Paul, Minnesota. “We’re seeing the effects of that.” Bang Brewing has been using Kernza since 2017, and Boss Febbo has been enthusiastic about experimenting with new perennial grains.
To date, the highest percentage of Kernza that Bang Brewing has used in a grain bill is 15.36%, in a Blonde Ale that it has since brewed many times. “We’re treating [Kernza] like when you brew with raw wheat,” she says. Keeping raw grains to a more modest percentage of the total grist allows brewers to avoid a stuck mash, while prioritizing a larger percentage of malted grains that have the enzymes needed to convert starch into fermentable sugars to feed the yeast.
“We’re hitting the same gravity that we were with an all-two-row [barley] grain bill,” Boss Febbo says, and explains that from a flavor perspective, Kernza has opened up a world of possibility. “Working with the Land Institute and the University of Minnesota, we were getting organically managed grain from their test plots,” she says. “Each one had a specific flavor profile. You think about hop terroir. Kernza does the same thing ... it’s really cool.”
“It feels so exciting to be able to … connect people to the notion that the way they drink [and] the way they eat is an agricultural act that has direct implications for what’s happening to the soil.”
Casey Letellier, a co-founder of the Arkansas-based Ivory Bill Brewing Co., is another brewer who has long been interested in sustainable agriculture, and he says that he has followed the work of the Land Institute for around a decade. Once the nonprofit came close to releasing a viable version of Kernza, he made it clear that he was keen to get ahold of it. “It feels so exciting to be able to … connect people to the notion that the way they drink [and] the way they eat is an agricultural act that has direct implications for what’s happening to the soil,” he says.
Both brewers, in their experiments with the grain, have had to adapt to its unique specifications, much like maltsters have. “We have an auger attached to our mill,” Boss Febo says. “We bypass that [for Kernza]. We don’t use the auger because the grain is so tiny.” Letellier also treats Kernza differently to how he would treat other grains in the brewhouse, he says, and he has found that a standard roller mill will not do the job. “You run it through, and it looks exactly the same as it did before,” he laughs. Instead, he has been using a plate mill that would be used for cornmeal.
In terms of its flavor profile, Letellier notes that Kernza goes beyond what he might expect of a grain. This may ultimately limit its versatility in a brewing context, though the flavors it offers can be quite striking. “I have felt, sometimes, like the vocabulary to describe what I’m experiencing … I’m struggling,” says Letellier. “It definitely has a really lovely spice note.” Sometimes it presents like nutmeg, he says, and other times like cinnamon. Miller agrees with this categorization. “It has this sort of baking spice aspect to it,” he says. “I would love to see someone really lean into it [by making a] holiday beer.”
Even in small quantities, Kernza can impart some distinctive notes to the final beer. “We reserved just a small portion of the large batch we brewed and aged it on cherries,” Letellier says of a Golden Strong Ale that Ivory Bill brewed. The sour cherries from the tree in the brewery’s yard ended up complementing the grain perfectly, he says. “The flavors of the Kernza and the flavors of the cherries were just phenomenal together.”
Kernza, Salish Blue, and other similar grains remain a curiosity for now, but the broad adoption of perennial grains may one day become a necessity. Too many more decades of inaction might simply force our hands. Modern agricultural practices combined with a dramatic rise in severe weather events could leave the soils that we’ve long relied upon increasingly unable to support crops as effectively, which may begin to impact food—and beer—supplies across the country and world.
Schwagerl uses the term “climate whiplash” to describe what farmers are contending with. “As a farmer, you’re riding that rollercoaster,” she says. Changing climate conditions are making harvests harder to predict, but what we know for sure is that we can’t keep using land as we have been doing indefinitely. “It won’t let us,” Kimbler says. “It’s a race to the bottom.”
For now, acreage for perennial grains like Salish Blue and Kernza is still vanishingly small when compared with more traditional annual grains, and this creates a self-perpetuating challenge when it comes to encouraging adoption by brewers and others. There needs to be demand from buyers for farmers to commit to growing these grains, and there needs to be availability from farmers to generate that demand in the first place. “Everyone kind of wants to experiment with 100 pounds,” Miller says. “We’re trying to get the volumes up to where it’s really transformational for the farmers.”
Free State Brewing Company is one brewery that has procured milled Kernza from Sustain-A-Grain. “At this point, the only real barrier to us using Kernza more often is price,” says head brewer Geoff Deman. This summer, the brewery released a beer called Prairie Defender, a German-style Wheat Beer that substitutes Kernza for malted wheat. The grain adds a peppery note to complement the clove-like spiciness of the style, Deman says, and notes that Kernza made up around 20% of the grist.
Even that wasn’t cheap. “We typically pay between 32 cents per pound to 54 cents per pound for base malt, with the most expensive specialty malts coming in at around $1.08 these days,” Deman says. Conversely, Kernza cost him $5.50 a pound. In 2021, Kernza grain pricing ranged from around $1-$6 per pound, depending on grain condition and organic certification. “Kernza will need more growers to adopt it as a crop and more brewers, bakers, food purveyors, etc. to request it in order for it to thrive in the marketplace as a viable alternative to today’s grains,” Deman says.
The brewers who are already incorporating Kernza are doing so very intentionally, with environmental issues top of mind. At Bang Brewing, Boss Febbo is working on a series called Perennial Percent, producing beers that include just 1% Kernza in the grain bill. It might not sound like a lot of grain, but she explains that it’s a way of modeling recipe development for larger regional or macro brewers, whose volumes mean that their support could make a substantial difference in the demand for Kernza. She hopes that someone can take the step of flaking the grain so that it’s plug-and-play for other brewers.
“It adds time to our brew prep, going though those steps,” she says, in reference to the special treatment that Kernza needs before being added to the grist. “It’s worth it to us, so we’re going to do it. That’s not going to be the case for everyone.” But with time—and increased options and availability, alongside decreased prices—it may be worth it to more brewers soon.
Meanwhile, as researchers continue to work on developing better genetics for perennials, Schwagerl knows that she must start taking action now. “We’re working out ways that we can mitigate that risk that comes with farming in a changing climate,” she says. Having a diverse crop rotation, she says, is one of those ways. “But nothing [alone] is a silver bullet.”
Words by Hollie StephensIllustrations by David Alvarado
