Upcycling of brewing byproducts into the brewing process: A sustainable beer brewing approach

ABSTRACT Beer, as one of the most consumed beverages in the world, is produced in large quantities. Its production requires huge amounts of energy and raw materials. Nowadays, one of the challenges for the brewing sector is sustainability in terms of energy consumption, transport, packaging, and byproducts valorization. This research work focuses on utilising brewing byproducts in the production cycle to create a new beer. Therefore, spent grains were used again in the mashing process, hopping was performed using spent hops from another beer batch, and fermentation was conducted using yeasts obtained from previous beer batches. The obtained beverage had comparable parameters to classical beer, and consumer tests showed high acceptability of the final product.