Cheers to that – the story of how our seaweed was added to a friendship | UniSC | University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, Australia

It’s the second time our seaweed has been used to make beer – there must be something in it.

Hip Hops founder Shaun Reeves heard about the first collaboration with Newstead Brewery – a salty German-style gose with a prominent seaweed punch – and had wanted to work with Professor Nick Paul from our Seaweed Research Group ever since.

The perfect opportunity presented itself thanks to an unusual request.

Shaun was approached by Moreton Bay City Council to create a Japanese-style beer showcasing local ingredients to celebrate the region’s long-standing friendship with Sanyo-Onoda in Japan – a relationship that has existed for more than 30 years.

Instead of the in-your-face flavours of a gose, Shaun set about creating a rice lager, using 5kg of Ulva ohnoi seaweed purpose grown at our UniSC campus in aquaculture tanks.

Compared to the 25 kilograms supplied for the gose, it was clear the seaweed here was intended to provide a subtle background note rather than dominate the flavour.

The lager also incorporated yuzu citrus grown just up the road in Gympie, layering gentle brightness over the seaweed’s natural umami to evoke familiar Japanese flavour cues.

The beer was named Tomodachi Lager – “tomodachi” translating to “friendship” in Japanese – a nod to both the ingredient choices and the international partnership it was designed to honour.

The Ulva – otherwise known as sea lettuce – was added at multiple stages of the brewing process: fresh into the mash, as a tea during the boil, and finally in dried form during fermentation to help balance salty and savoury notes.

The Tomodachi Lager was released as a limited run and launched at an official event attended by representatives from Sanyo-Onoda, including its mayor, earning their tick of approval as both a symbol of cultural exchange and a nice drop to boot.

Lagers are generally considered one of the harder beers to brew, with their clean, crisp profiles offering little room to hide mistakes.

Professor Paul notes that, in this case, the addition of seaweed was partly a novelty – a way to showcase regional research and innovation – but not without precedent.

Seaweed has been indirectly used in brewing since at least pre-1850s Scotland, when farmers fertilised barley fields with it. 
In the 1990s, Scotland’s Williams Brothers Brewing Co revived the idea more directly with Kelpie Seaweed Ale.

Since then, it has been embraced by craft brewers in the United States and Australia.

It also helps that Ulva ohnoi is closely related to aosa, a seaweed commonly eaten in Japan, giving the ingredient choice cultural resonance as well as flavour logic.

Cheers to that.