Breweries have been increasingly turning to unusual and sustainable products and production methods to stand out in a competitive market.
Among them is South Australia’s Robe Town Brewery, which is using camel-dung for a new product.
Owner and head brewer Maris Biezaitis said the beer – Holy Smokes! – was inspired by Humpalicious, a neighbouring camel farm.
“When I befriended the people that run the local camel dairy, I wanted to make a beer from something with the camels,” he said.
"I was racking my brain for quite a few weeks and eventually realised just about the only thing I could use from the camel to make a beer is the dung.
Leftover grain from the brewery is fed to the camels and dung is then collected from the farm and used as the fuel to smoke the malted barley.
“There might be people out there that smoke their brisket with some birch wood chips or cherry wood chips, but we smoke malt with camel-dung,” Mr Biezaitis said.
“People have been cooking with dung for thousands of years … it is a natural fuel source for cooking.”
The end product does not contain the dung and Mr Biezaitis says it does not taste like the animal that inspired the beer either.
“I think the flavour is something akin to a peat-smoked malt,” he said.
“Actually, I was quite surprised to find how little camel flavour there is.”