ST. LOUIS, Mo. — On a recent weekday afternoon, dozens of people filled the cozy bar area at Blue Jay Brewing Company. Scattered among the tables and the bar were glasses filled with lager, a specialty of the brewery from St. Louis.

On that day, a new creation called New Roots also appeared on offer. The American Lager was a hit and many customers returned to the bar for another glass.

“I love it – nice earthiness. But it’s still pretty and can be crushed,” said Bryan Schubert, owner of a brewery in Illinois. “It’s actually a good measure of beer. You want someone to be at your bar and be able to enjoy a few of them within reason.”

Good enough that regulars like Greg Campbell tried it in addition to what they usually order.

“It’s hard for me to part with my favorite German beer. I tried a little bit of (New Roots) and said, ‘Man, this is a hit,'” he said. “It’s full-bodied, very balanced and (has) good flavor.”

Blue Jay owner and brewer Jason Thompson was also pleased with the result of this experimental beer, which he described as “earthy, almost nutty” with a “lingering honey sweetness.”

Those flavors come from his decision to use a new grain called Kernza at 25 percent of the 600 pounds of grain needed to make the entire brew, he said.

“Any grain I haven’t used before I find interesting and challenging,” Thompson said. He added that the Kernza grain is much smaller than barley or wheat grain, and is slightly elongated and skinny. Almost flat.”

These differences did pose some challenges. Thompson explained that the Kernza slipped through his grinder when he was trying to crush the beans to expose the starch necessary for brewing.

Eventually, Thompson adapted to a different brewing technique that used a mixture of ground and unground Kernza, and the experiment was successful. This was good news for Thomson, but also for Kernza’s supporters, who want the grain to succeed and see in its small seeds the potential for huge changes in modern agriculture.

Seeds of the future

Many modern agricultural staples, such as corn, soybeans, wheat, barley and others, are planted in the ground each growing season. After harvesting, the soil is left bare or farmers plant cover crops in these fields for the winter. Kernza, on the other hand, stays in the ground for several years and can produce many crops during this time.

“It has a very deep, persistent root system that stays in the ground for many years – the entire life of the plant,” said Allison Miller, an evolutionary biologist who studies Kernza at the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center. “It holds soil in place, helps build new soil, absorbs water, takes up nutrients, hosts an incredibly diverse microbiome, and sequesters carbon.”

She added that this type of plant becomes particularly attractive when looking for potential crops that can both feed people and mitigate the negative effects of agriculture on the planet.

There are thousands of species of perennial plants that can be grown in agriculture. Plant scientists recently discovered that perennial rice maintains better soil quality, requires less labor, and produces comparable yields compared to annual rice varieties.

We hope Kernza can perform similarly. But it and other potential perennial plants face an evolutionary challenge, Miller said. Kernza comes from intermediate wheatgrass, a perennial grass native to Central Asia that was first introduced to the United States in the 1930s. It was mainly used as a fodder grass, and crop researchers only began breeding it as a food source for humans in the 1980s.

“Kernza has basically been at a disadvantage for 10,000 years compared to other major crops,” Miller said. “We really don’t think we have 10,000 years to develop the future of agriculture. We really want this to happen within the next century. And hopefully sooner.”

Miller’s research aims to fill this gap by examining how perennial plants grow and allocate resources to different parts of the plant’s body. Understanding this could help scientists breed a plant more quickly that could produce a higher seed yield while still developing a root system that is essential for environmental benefits, she said. However, she admitted that her research is a long-term project.

“It’s not something we can go out this fall and say, ‘You know, next year I’d really like to move this soybean field to Kernza,’” she said. “This will be a challenge on the scale of modern agriculture.”

But the type of experimentation going on at Blue Jay Brewing Company is an important step in the development of grain alternatives to wheat, barley and other annual crops, Miller said.

Creating a market

Kernza, which first hit the market in 2018, covered 2,405 acres of U.S. farmland in 2023, out of hundreds of millions of acres planted nationwide. Some farmers want to access the environmental benefits of growing Kernza, but the consumer market isn’t ready yet, said Tessa Peters, director of crop management at The Land Institute, which grows perennial crops including Kernza.

There also aren’t many entities in the middle of the supply chain milling or processing the grain, making it even more difficult for individuals or food and beverage companies of any size to use Kernza, Peters said.

“The market is soft and unpredictable because it’s so early,” she said. “And it is worth saying that the price was a barrier. Yields are lower than wheat – we are working on it.”

Environmental arguments are unlikely to encourage many people to buy or consume the product, Peters added.

“Consumers don’t really make purchases based on environmental messages,” she said. “I think that’s where Kernza really has an advantage because it really tastes great and creates delicious products.”

She argued that if a large food conglomerate like General Mills or Nestle committed to using a small amount of Kernza in several of their most popular products, the grain’s fortunes could quickly change.

“A few large companies that put 1 to 5 percent Kernza in their best-selling products could translate into tens or hundreds of thousands of acres,” she said. “These big players have a big impact on the supply chain.”

But small brewers like Blue Jay and others experimenting with Kernza still have a key role to play, she added. These are entities that have a close connection with their consumers and can help tell the Kernza story.

“These companies have an opportunity to be shepherds who attract larger companies and say, ‘(Using Kernza) can be done effectively and at a reasonable cost,’” she said.

Nick Colombo, owner of Switchgrass Spirits in St., agrees. Louis, producing bourbons, whiskeys and other spirits. Like Blue Jay Brewing, its small distillery is just starting to experiment with Kernza.

“We can do something fun and exciting,” he said. “Large corporations will never do this because they need to maximize profits for their shareholders.”

So while Switchgrass won’t influence the market with its purchasing power, he said, “I see it (for Kernza) growing if the name gets out there, if there’s demand, if we build a customer base.”

But it’s still years away.

“We are working with other craft beverage producers to figure out how to turn Kernza into alcohol and what it tastes like,” he said. “Honestly, we have never had access to Kernza, it is difficult to buy.”

Thompson also faced this dilemma. He used special contacts to obtain the hundreds of pounds of Kernza he needed for the final batch of New Roots. But Thompson made it clear he would brew beer with grain again.

“I would love to, it depends on Kernza’s availability,” Thompson said.

This story is a fruit Mississippi River Basin Water Agency and Deskindependent reporting network based at University of Missouri in cooperation with Report for Americawith major financial support from the Walton Family Foundation. The Earth Institute is also funded by Walton.