A Belgian microbrewery is selling beer that utilizes unsold bread from supermarkets.
The result, Reuters reports, blends ingredients and techniques from modern and ancient brewers. The oldest surviving beer recipe, for example, calls for multigrain bread loaves mixed with honey.
Sebastien Morvan, co-founder of the Brussels Beer Project, said 12 percent of the Belgian capital's overall food waste comes from bread; he said grocers typically bake all day in order to maintain a fresh supply for customers.
Instead of discarding unsold bread, a local project arranged to dry and cut the leftovers and give them to the brewery, where they replace about 30 percent of the barley that would ordinarily be used in the brewing process.
Morvan said the beer, called Babylone in a nod to the 4,000-year-old Mesopotamian recipe, "might not please everybody's palate, but I think the ones who like this will really enjoy it."
