As the first 100% quinoa-based beer in the US, start-up Meli made its debut in Massachusetts last year: championing quinoa as a ethically sourced, gluten-free ingredient with a well-known nutritious edge.
And with a flavor that offers something different and more approachable than typical beers, its founder believes the grain has great potential to be part of the brewing industry of the future.
Creating a new brew
Meli was founded by Samara Oster, a Harvard and MIT alum, who was inspired by her travels abroad.
“Many years ago I took a trip to Peru where I came across a quinoa beer on a restaurant menu: it was a beer made from malted barley and quinoa, so it wasn’t gluten-free, but I found the taste very palatable,” she told us.
“It was crisp and refreshing, without the traditional bitterness or maltiness I associated with beer. I was starting to reduce gluten out of my diet to address underlying health issues, and it made me wonder whether a beer could be brewed using only quinoa, while still preserving that great taste.”
Thus inspired, Oster set off on a journey to brew her own quinoa beer. Meli launched in Massachusetts in summer 2024. Encouraged by its early success, it’s now expanding with new partnerships with Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods.
It is also making its nationwide expansion via ecommerce.
Making a quinoa brew
The journey from idea to product launch was not easy. Teaming up with MIT food scientists, it took Oster more than three years to come up with a brew she was happy with.
“It was incredibly challenging,” she said. “The first two years were spent zeroing in on a recipe that tasted great: there were close to 100 formulations of trial and error, to select the proper quinoa, hops, and yeast, and to create a brewing process that was able to work with such a small and unique grain.
The main challenge was trying to adapt quinoa to existing brewing processes.
“Working with quinoa comes with all sorts of challenges that we had to contend with,” said Oster. “Because quinoa is such a small grain compared to barley, or other traditional brewing grains, breweries are not designed to process it in their equipment. Both our efforts to access the sugars inside the quinoa seeds, as well as to avoid clogging equipment led to significant differences in the process.”
Meli is made from water, organic quinoa, hops and yeast. Its USP is its organic quinoa, sourced from smallholder farms in Bolivia. Oster was insistent that the quinoa had to be the highest quality possible, in order to deliver the biggest benefits from the grain in the brew as well as ensuring farmers were suitably supported.
“We take our supply chain very seriously, and we are proud to ethically-source the world’s best organic quinoa (in terms of size of the seed and nutritional content) from smallholder farmers in the Altiplano region of Bolivia,” said Oster.
“We find that this quinoa performs beautifully in our brews and ensures we maintain a clear supply chain that does not exploit farmers.”
Coming in at 4.4% ABV, it is a light, easy-drinking beer with functional benefits such as protein and 7% of daily potassium per can. The brew is naturally gluten-free and has zero sugar.
One of the biggest advantages of the brew, says Oster, is that the brew is ‘very crisp and bright… lighter than a typical beer, while still offering flavor and aroma’. That can bring a whole new group of drinkers into the category.
Oster is wary about putting a ‘style’ on the beer: because she doesn’t want to consumers to come in with pre-conceptions about what they don’t like.
“When we do tastings with consumers, we hear everything from “this tastes like an IPA” to “I hate beer, but I love this”. This is a big part of why we don’t put a style of beer on our can,” she said.
“Every person who comes to it has a different experience, and we prefer for people to go in with an open mind. To me, Meli tastes a bit like a Belgian wheat beer, but if you dialed it down by 40%. It’s crisp, refreshing, and aromatic, with just a hint of sweetness.”
So how is Meli getting out to a new group of consumers who think they don’t like beer?
It’s all about sips to lips, says Oster: an in particular, getting people to try the product out of curiosity.
“We are constantly in stores and at events, getting samples into consumers’ hands,” she said.
“With such a unique product that sits at a higher pricepoint, the most important thing we can do is give people the opportunity to try before they buy. This is also where our partnerships with on-premise establishments have been essential. As a startup with a limited budget, we cannot compete with bigger brands on elaborate floor displays or constant promotional pricing in-store, so we rely on a menu presence and corresponding staff trainings to help consumers discover us and try us.”
Long term potential?
At the moment, Meli is a premium brew with a pricepoint above most other beers with a similar ABV (a four-pack retails at $16.99 online).
That is partly due to the complexity of the brewing process, and partly because of the high standards Meli has for sourcing quinoa. Small volume production also adds to the costs.
But Oster believes the potential is there for the price of Meli to come down as it grows and captures economies of scale.
And she also believes in quinoa beer as a category.
“We are sitting at the precipice of what we believe is an evolution of the beer industry,” she said. “The demand for ‘better-for-you’ beverages has already transformed countless categories, from soda to tequila. Given the limited number of ‘better-for-you’ beers in the market, plus the overall stagnation of national beer sales, we think the climate is perfect to invite new consumers into the category and prove out the size of the opportunity.”
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