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Spotted: Toast Ale, the British craft brewer known for its recipes that use bread that would normally go to waste, is now brewing beer from pumpkin flesh that would normally be discarded.

The brewing of “Dubbel Dubbel Toil and Trouble,” a seasonal Belgian-style Pumpkin Dubbel, is set to begin on 4 November, with sales to start at the end of the month. The brewery is partnering with Hubbub on this new brew to help with its annual #PumpkinRescue campaign. Pumpkins used in Toast’s new recipe will be collected by volunteers from local farms.

This builds upon Toast’s main mission, which is to help reduce food waste by making use of bread that would typically be wasted. Beer is traditionally brewed with grains, including wheat and barley, which are also the main components of bread. In fact, beer was most probably originally developed as a way to make use of stale bread. When Toast founder Tristram Stuart discovered this, he was inspired to set up the brewery. Today, Toast brewers combine surplus bread with malted barley, using the bread to replace around one-third of the grain normally used. 

All profits from Toast’s beer sales are given to charities working to eliminate food waste, and the brewery has open-sourced a recipe for home brewers who also want to use stale bread in their brews.

According to Toast, up to 44 per cent of all bread baked in the UK – around 24 million slices each day –  is never eaten. Many pumpkins do not get eaten either, with roughly 18,000 tonnes of edible pumpkin discarded each year. 

At Springwise, we take a keen interest in tackling the issue of food waste. We have covered a range of innovations that have used food waste for everything from aeroplane trays to drinking cups.