Kiitos fonio fusion IPA blends ancient grain with modern hops

Kiitos Fonio Fusion IPA lands as a June 1, 2026, all-grain, five-gallon recipe with a clear mission: make an ancient West African cereal feel right at home in a modern IPA. At Kiitos in Salt Lake City, head brewer Patrick Bourque built the beer to show off fonio’s own voice, then let today’s hop aromatics finish the sentence. The result is less a novelty brew than a signpost for where ingredient-driven craft beer is heading.

Fonio gives IPA a different kind of lift

Bourque says the beer was brewed to highlight fonio’s unique flavors, including passion fruit, lychee, and white peach, and to show how those notes work alongside modern hop aromatics. That matters because fonio is not coming to the glass as a neutral stand-in for another grain. It brings its own profile, one that can sit in the same tropical lane as the hops instead of clashing with them.

That flavor range is part of why brewers keep coming back to the grain. Craft Beer & Brewing’s fonio coverage says drinkers and brewers often pick up lychee, white grape, mango, and sauvignon blanc in the grist, while the same grain reads as nutty in food like pilafs or chips. In other words, fonio has enough range to feel familiar in a hop-forward beer, but still different enough to make the palate pause.

A recipe built for comparison, not just curiosity

The June 1 recipe is more than editorial garnish because it is a concrete all-grain, five-gallon formulation that homebrewers can actually study against their own IPA builds. Kiitos is not treating fonio like a one-off stunt, either. Bourque and his team have already used the grain in other beers, including an IPA built on a 50/50 pilsner malt and fonio grist and hopped with Citra and Vera.

That earlier beer tells you a lot about how fonio behaves in a brewery context. A 50/50 split is a serious commitment, not a token trial, and it suggests the grain can carry half the base without disappearing behind the hops. For brewers, that opens a useful lane: you can test how fonio changes the beer’s grain character, then see what happens when classic IPA hop choices like Citra are layered on top.

What fonio changes in the glass

Compared with a standard malt bill, fonio brings a different conversation to the brew day and the pint glass. Its flavor leans toward fruit and floral complexity rather than biscuit or bread crust, which means the beer can feel brighter without needing to turn into a fruit bomb. That is a big part of the appeal in a style like IPA, where the grain base often serves as a frame for the hops.

The process side matters too. Because fonio is a distinct cereal, not just another familiar brewing malt, its role in the grist shapes the entire recipe choice around it. Bourque’s work shows that the grain can be used as a major part of the base, not only as a supporting player, and that makes it especially interesting to brewers chasing a fresher expression of a familiar style.

From West Africa to the brewhouse

Fonio’s appeal reaches well beyond beer. Britannica describes it as a nutritious African grain that can grow in harsh weather and poor soil, and notes that it can be used to make beer, bread, porridge, salads, and stews. That resilience is part of why the grain has drawn renewed global interest, especially in a moment when brewers and food makers are both paying closer attention to climate-smart ingredients.

A 2025 Nature paper adds another layer, describing black and white fonio as indigenous West African grains with independent domestication and cultivation histories. That means the grain is not just trendy, it is deeply rooted in agricultural history. When it shows up in a modern IPA, it brings that lineage with it.

The supply chain is getting bigger, but it is still small

Brooklyn Brewery has become one of the loudest advocates for fonio through its Fonio Rising beers and its partnership with Yolélé. On its Fonio Rising page, the brewery says it is working with Yolélé to bring awareness of fonio worldwide and calls it “the grain of the past and the future.” The brewery has also linked the effort to the United Nations’ declaration of 2023 as the International Year of Millets.

The commercial numbers show that the grain is moving, but not at industrial scale. Craft Beer & Brewing reported that Brooklyn Brewery had become the largest buyer of fonio in the United States by early 2026 and had used more than 10 tons so far. Even with that growth, fewer than 1,000 small-scale family farmers supply Yolélé, which is a reminder that every pint brewed with fonio sits inside a still-tight supply chain.

How to think about using fonio yourself

If you are looking for the grain in your own brewhouse, the smartest approach is to treat it as a character ingredient with a real base-malt role. The Kiitos examples point to two useful ideas: pair it with a clean malt like pilsner when you want its flavor to show, and choose hops that support tropical or white-fruit notes rather than bury them. That is the sweet spot where fonio makes the most sense.

• Look for fonio through ingredient suppliers already serving brewers or through food channels tied to the grain’s brewing partners.
• Expect a profile that can read as lychee, white grape, mango, passion fruit, or white peach rather than plain cereal.
• Use it where you want the grain to contribute flavor, not just fermentables.
• Compare it against a familiar base recipe so you can taste exactly what it changes.

Kiitos Fonio Fusion IPA works because it does not ask IPA drinkers to learn a new language from scratch. It takes a style they already know, adds a grain with West African roots and climate relevance, and lets the hop bill carry the message home. That is how an ancient cereal ends up sounding surprisingly at ease in a glass of modern IPA.