Brewing Local Millet Beer in Mali

Beer brewery in Mali

[Photo credit: Erwin Bolwidt (El Rabbit)]

Millet beer is prepared in many parts of Africa. This opaque beer is part of local culture in Mali for some ethnic groups like the Bobo and Dogon. There are many small home breweries where beer is made by the women and drunk by the men. The grain is malted by soaking the grains to encourage them to sprout and then drying them. The next stage takes 3 days and involves mashing, boiling, fermenting and straining. The boiling is done either in multi-compartments as above or a single compartment stove. See http://www.archaeology.org/online/features/mali/beer.html for a good diagram.

There are some great pictures and description of brewing local millet beer in Mali at Michael and Doria’s Travel Tales. Please take time and look at the rest of this blog!

Homebrew, Bobo Style

In Segou we visited a Bobo family who run a small brewery in their home, making millet beer in small quantities that they sell from a shed in their compound. While Mali is predominantly Muslim, and thus not alcohol-friendly, there are a number of peoples within the country who have maintained their traditional religions. Our guide Oumar referred to the Bobo people as “hard-core animists”. Whatever that means, they certainly were into their beer, and I got quite a few pictures of their backyard brewing venture

Here the millet kernels are soaked in warm water in the sun until they sprout. This, as any self-respecting homebrewer knows, is the first step of the process known as malting. Grains are malted by encouraging them to germinate, or sprout, and then drying them out again before the process goes to far. This increases the sugar known as maltose in the grain.

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Suggested Books (US)

• Uncorking the Past: The Quest for Wine, Beer, and Other Alcoholic Beverages
• Food Culture in Sub-Saharan Africa (Food Culture around the World)

Suggested Books (UK)

• Uncorking the Past: The Quest for Wine, Beer, and Other Alcoholic Beverages
• Food Culture in Sub-Saharan Africa (Food Culture Around the World Series)