In this episode of BierTalk, Markus Raupach takes listeners on an exciting journey to West Africa, where he meets Raphaël Hilarion, the founder of Maison Kalao, a craft brewery based in Senegal. Raphaël shares his story of moving from France to Africa and establishing a brewery with a unique focus on local grains and the dream of creating a Pan-African beer. Together, they explore the challenges of setting up a brewery in Senegal, a predominantly Muslim country, and Raphaël’s mission to brew modern beers using traditional African ingredients like millet, sorghum, fonio, and cassava.

They also discuss his inspiring collaboration with Garrett Oliver of Brooklyn Brewery and the craft beer scene’s development in Senegal and West Africa. As Markus and Raphaël dive into the tasting of the Dachau Brooklyn beer, brewed with the ancient grain fonio, listeners get a glimpse into the rich flavors and creative potential of African brewing. Tune in to learn more about Maison Kalao’s journey, Raphaël’s passion for African ingredients, and the future of craft beer in Senegal. Listen now to discover the innovative fusion of African tradition and modern brewing…

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Markus Raupach: Hello and welcome to our podcast, BierTalk. Today we make a very interesting journey. We go to the western part of Africa, a huge continent with a lot of people and a lot of beer, and today we meet Raphaël Hilarion. He is a brewer there, he has a brewery there, and he has a very interesting project we will be talking about. But maybe first you introduce yourself a little bit to our listeners.

Raphaël Hilarion: Hello, everyone. It’s great to be here. I’m Raphaël Hilarion, I’m the founder of the Maison Kalao, a brewery born in Senegal three years ago. Been in France the past six years. Then I moved to Senegal three years ago, and with my wife, we built the Maison Kalao brewery. And what we wanted to do is to value the local cereal and to have Pan-African beer.

Markus Raupach: That is a huge thing to say, a Pan-African beer. Also, you call it a Pan-African brewery. So really, for the whole continent, I just have been to Cape Town and judged at the African Beer Cup. And so I really saw that there’s a huge African beer culture and a wide variety, and also a lot of interesting ingredients, also, like local herbs, local fruits you can use for making beer. So it’s a rich source in Africa, which is maybe not really used yet. But maybe first, let’s talk a bit about yourself. So how did you come into the beer world, or the beer life? How did that find you?

Raphaël Hilarion: It’s a long story. I will make it short. So before to start brewing, I was working in a theatre. I was doing something else, but I working with my hands, and I wanted to do something by myself to make my own company. And I was speaking into the beer industry, or the food industry, both things I love. And it starts because I love beer and I was in this brewpub called Pana Brewing Company in Paris. I was going there every day, and I was fascinated by the work of the brewers. So I was, you know, going there, trying new flavours and asking a lot of things to the brewers and little by little, I learned a lot. And it was great because it was brewers from Germany, Italy, Republic Czech and American. So you know, it was a lot of information to get, and at some point, I just wanted to do more. I asked them like to learn about the brewery. I stayed with them for a day and I had the idea somewhere to go back to Africa and do something there. And, you know, like it was in 2021 and the Covid happened, and it changed the whole thing. I was learning how to brew. I was thinking going back to Africa. Everything went very, very fast with my wife, who said like, okay, let’s just go back in Africa and let’s make beer. This is how everything started.

Markus Raupach: Yes, and originally, you were born in Africa or in France?

Raphaël Hilarion: No, I was born in France, but my parents were in Africa. So I lived in Africa 16 years in Ivory Coast, Senegal and Mauritania.

Markus Raupach: And why did you choose Senegal now for your new home place?

Raphaël Hilarion: This is maybe the only country where I feel like I’m in home, you know? And Senegal, it’s like the door of Africa. They speak French, it’s a very chill country, it’s easy, it’s always sunny, and it’s very important. It’s a stable country, you know, for West Africa. Now, economic start to increase a lot. It’s about 20 years now. So if you want to do something new and found a business in Africa, it’s one of the place where a lot of things is possible.

Markus Raupach: Yes, so I understand it’s a little bit like you. You also are always sunny. That’s something I really like. You’re always laughing. You’re smiling, even after a long travel or hard work or whatever. That is really great. How is the beer world in Senegal? So are there many breweries? Are people drinking beer? How does that work?

Raphaël Hilarion: So there is the industrial beer called Soboa, which is the Castel group. It’s an empire in West Africa. So Castel came there in the 60s, just before the independence, and they built different breweries. And we have this industrial model. So they had like two beers only. So when I was a kid in Ivory Coast, there was maybe two or three different beers made by Castel. And when I went to Senegal, it was exactly the same beer. So that was the market. There was only these two beer, Gazelle and Flag. And it has been like this till 2018 where the first craft beer born, you know. So there’s this French guy. He knew that the craft beer world started to grow, and he decided to make the first brewery here because a lot of customers like wanted something new and different, you know, something that they knew before in Europe or America. The demand was already there. They just needed the brewer. So the first brewer is called Gecko Brewery, and it was the only one, and then a second one arrived about four years ago. It’s a Belgium guy. It’s called Bono, but he makes his beer for the African market. So he imported from Belgium and one year after I was there, without knowing like that was happening already. I thought that would be the first, but it was great to see that it already happened.

Markus Raupach: And how hard is it to set up a business? So do you just go to an office and say, I want to do a brewery, or do you have to do special things, or what?

Raphaël Hilarion: Yes, it’s very hard because Senegal is a Muslim country, okay? So 95% of the population are not supposed to drink, okay? But you have also a lot of foreigners who love to drink and find, like, all the different alcohol they can. There is not so much, but there is enough. But when you go to the administration to find out how it works to have the authorization, like they’re not used to that, so they don’t know the law, you know. All the law is the same as in France. So if you have, like, the Cour pénale and all the things for the French administration, if you know it, you can just do it in Senegal. But I didn’t know at that time. So I was going to the wrong administration, and they told me, like, you have to do this and this and this. And I did that for nine months and find out that it wasn’t a good thing, because you call brewery, it’s called Brasserie in French, okay? But Brasserie is also a restaurant. I was saying Brasserie and they thought it was a restaurant. So I did all the paper for a restaurant, and then when they saw the tank, I explained I wanted to make beer. But when they came to the, they said, like, no, you went to the wrong administration. So it took me a year before I had the authorization. But at the same time, I was working on my recipe, which was good because I didn’t have that much experience, and I had to work with local cereal, and I had no idea how use them and how that works. A year was just perfect.

Markus Raupach: But finally, you made it, and then you started brewing your recipes. And did you have, like, a team around you, people that you trained for brewing? Or how’s it looking today?

Raphaël Hilarion: I was by myself. It was just me, my wife, like she didn’t want to start with me. She was doing something else, but after six months, I was doing the recipe, you know you make. Try to your friend, they say it’s good. But, you know, it’s not very good. So you have to, you know, make it better and better every day. And I was just brewing every day by myself, and just waiting for a few weeks to try it. Then my wife joined me, and we start to brew together and learn a lot of things together. And went to like, you know, to find some traditional way of working with this cereal. So you can’t really find things written. You have to ask the people. So you just go across the country and look for some people that know how to use millet, for example. And yes, that was it. So we just keep brewing until we find the right taste.

Markus Raupach: So from the beginning, already you had the idea to use local grains and historic ancient ideas of African beers to make modern versions of that, and to use these ancient grains or old varieties.

Raphaël Hilarion: Exactly, yes.

Markus Raupach: And how did you came to this idea? Was that something you had in France already in mind? Or, I think you, normally, you don’t wake up and say, okay, let’s do historic grains in Africa.

Raphaël Hilarion: In Paris, I was living in an African district, you know, it was near the Senegalese one, and I wanted to find the African taste, so went to some shops, African shops, and trying the Flag and Gazelle. You know, it was a long time I haven’t tried this, but I couldn’t taste, you know? I was thinking about something but it didn’t taste like it. I really thought like, oh, that would be different. There was something, you know, from Africa with different grain. I couldn’t find any African taste in it. So I keep looking for an African beer around Paris. I found a few from South Africa, but nothing I know about. And like, you know, the ideas start to grow and think like, maybe there’s something to do there and find a proper West African taste. This is how it starts. I didn’t know what grain I would use. I was just thinking I would think like, I go through Senegal and I will look around and see if it works.

Markus Raupach: And that’s fascinating. What was your first beer you made? But you also could sell, and how did the people react?

Raphaël Hilarion: The first one was a stout. One of my favourite beers is Guinness. So I wanted to find something like Guinness. Central Africa people love Guinness. And so I had this value grain, so I start doing it. I wanted to add something in it because it was too heavy. So I wanted to have something lighter, you know, adapt for Senegal. Senegal, it’s very hot, it’s very dry. So you want something digestible, so I looked into like different information, and I found out that the rice can make a beer lighter. So I sent a message to a brewer in Japan to see if they could have some information. They give me a few. And I thought, okay, I’m going to start with the rice. So made it this starts with rice, with 30% of rice. It didn’t work at first. I make it try. It was too heavy, too foamy, sometimes not very good, usually not very good. Little by little, I found a way to do it. It’s 30% of rice and the rest barley malt.

Markus Raupach: And you’re still brewing it today?

Raphaël Hilarion: Yes, absolutely. It’s called African Queen.

Markus Raupach: And how do the people react? Do the people like it? Are they curious? Do they ask you about how you make it? Or what is the African beer drinker like?

Raphaël Hilarion: First of all, it was difficult, because we came with the idea of making a different beer, you know, with rice, with millet, with sorghum and fonio. But like, I think a lot of customers have been used to the Flag and Gazelle, okay? And that was our first customer, the first one we knew about. They had habits about beer. So when you say, like, okay, this beer is made with sorghum, they expect a very different taste, you know? And they think like, okay, maybe, if nobody did that before because it’s probably not very good. So when they try it, it just didn’t work, you know? I had to find my generation that are used to very different type of beer from Europe, you know that they are curious, and they wanted to try. My friend was very supportive. My wife too, and the first customer for our generation, were nice with us. This is how we started. And after a year, you know, like, we were doing different markets and different bars and like, try it with the people. And after a year, we start to have a small notoriety you said. You know, people start to learn, know about this and you have been easier and easier. And this is when we did the collaboration with Brooklyn. That changed also.

Markus Raupach: Yes, of course, that is another story that, because we have a common friend, Garrett Oliver from Brooklyn Brewery, we will talk about that maybe in a moment. Maybe two other things before. So after rice, then you went to sorghum? Or what was the path then with the other grains, or millet first? Or fonio first?

Raphaël Hilarion: It was millet. Yes, we start with rice and then millet. Then after sorghum, fonio. And now we’re doing one with cassava, which is not a grain, but …

Markus Raupach: That’s like a root, I think. Very interesting. I had one of these beers also in South Africa. Was very curious about that. Yes, really interesting. And you have a really beautiful logo. Das Maison Kalao has a special meaning because you have that bird in the logo. Is that somehow connected?

Raphaël Hilarion: Yes, the bird is come from Ivory Coast, north of Ivory Coast is described called Senufo birds, which is a protection. You have a lot of meanings. When I was a kid, my parents have this giant bird, and a lot of people were coming to our place, you know, looking at the birds, because it’s very big, and it’s you know, imposant. He had some kind of magical power for the people. I grew up with it. A lot of weird things happen with that birds. And I was just fascinated by, you know, didn’t know if it was a power or something. But just by the statue. We sell that statue when we went back to France, and I don’t know, six or seven years ago, I just was obsessed by the bird. I said, like, okay, I should get it back. So with my wife, we came to Senegal just to visit. And I said, like, I can’t leave that country without finding a bird. So look for it for a month. Three days before I left, I found a small bird. Bring back to Paris. It was in our place. You know, was like kissing the bird every day just to give luck and yeah, I love the name. I love the statue. I love the meaning of it. It was just in my mind, whatever companion we do, I would call it Kalao.

Markus Raupach: Perfect, wonderful story. And also I’m already in love with the picture and also with the statues. It’s really great. So you also had it when we met in the USA?

Raphaël Hilarion: Yes, yes, yes, I had the bird. I’ve got it with me.

Markus Raupach: That was great. So now we are at this common friend, Garret Oliver. So how did you come across? Did he just contact you? Or did you meet somewhere? Or how did that work?

Raphaël Hilarion: When I went to the east of Senegal, I found out about fonio. I didn’t know anything about that grain. Fonio come from Senegal, Mali and Guinea, and a few other countries, but nobody eats it here, you know? Because, as Garrett explained, like, you know, when the French arrived, they didn’t like it, so they make the rice and that was a bit lost. So I went to the east in this very small village at the border of Mali, and it was Christmas, so we had this big meal with fonio. I loved it straight away and I asked, what was it? They explained me, it was very old grain and have a lot of very good thing in it. And I just said to my wife, we should do a beer with it. Probably we’d be the first making a beer with fonio. And came back with some grain to use it and I talked to a friend, look on the internet, and two days after, I say, like, okay, you know, Brooklyn Brewery made the first fonio beer. It’s very interesting. So on Instagram, we ask for some advice, how it tastes like. We’ve sent some questions, and I think it’s Garrett who answer to us, and he give us exactly the quantity, how to use it, what it tastes like, and everything. And this is how we start with Garrett. After a year, I had the contact of Pierre Thiam. I don’t know if you know Pierre Thiam. He’s the ambassador of fonio in United States, from Senegal. He has some restaurants in America, and someone told me you should contact him, because he come often in Senegal, and maybe there’s something to do. I found out his contact, sent him a message. He told me, okay, I’m going to come in a month, we should meet. Also, I’d love to try your fonio beer. And I made myself a fonio beer with Brooklyn and Garrett. So we met. It was really great to meet Pierre, and he told me the Brooklyn team would come in a few months. That would be interesting if you met them. I said, wow, that could be amazing. And so he went back to America, he sent an email with Garrett’s copy on it, and we started to talk. And we spoke like, okay, maybe it would be interesting to make a beer together with fonio. Of course, they were making this short movie about Senegal and fonio, and we decided to have a day together and to make the beer, and we did it. And after that, I say, like, okay, maybe I can make a special beer with Brooklyn. And they say, yes. And this is how it starts. We did it, and everything went bigger.

Markus Raupach: Yes, fascinating story. Garrett is a very charismatic guy and also a huge person in the brewing world. So that’s also good to have him on your side. And also, I think the whole story, we will put a link to the film, to that movie, in the show notes, so that people can see it. It’s really fascinating. Also, how to treat the fonio. So it’s, on one hand, it’s an easy grain because it’s easy to grow. It grows everywhere. It doesn’t need irrigation. It’s a wonderful product, but when you have it, then it’s hard to make something usable out of it. So there’s a lot of work to do, which you can also see in the video. And this is really interesting. We have that beer. You gave me a bottle of it, so let’s maybe try it. I don’t know if you also have one.

Raphaël Hilarion: I have a cassava beer that I have to try before.

Markus Raupach: Oh okay. So you drink cassava. I drink this here. The name, is it just Kalao? Or does it have a special name?

Raphaël Hilarion: It’s the Dachau Brooklyn one.

Markus Raupach: Ah, Dachau Brooklyn. Yes, perfect. So I’ll pour it.

Raphaël Hilarion: I just hope it travelled right.

Markus Raupach: I did my best. So I had it in my suitcase, and immediately afterwards, put it in my fridge, until now. So it should be okay. I have it now in my glass, and you see it’s a beautiful, bright golden colour. A little bit shiny, so a little bit hazy. On top, you have a beautiful white foam. So very, very intense, very long-lasting. And also the colour, I really like it. Beautiful, and a very intense, quite differentiated taste. So you have, like, some winey notes, but also some fruity notes. Winey, I would say it goes into, like a white wine idea, the fruity notes go little bit like mangoes, like apples, also some citrusy aroma. Also, of course, you have some grainish aroma, a little bit of honey, and also a very fresh character. It really makes me wanting to drink it. So that’s also great, and really little bit gentle, so a little, also a little bit noble. So more like a wine, champagne character. So that’s really very interesting notes. What would you say? You had more often I think.

Raphaël Hilarion: Yes, so we have three different fonio beer. You have the pils. There’s another pils and one with fruits, with mango. For me, the particularity of fonio, it gives a very nice and sweet body to the beer. I really like the taste. It’s not heavy it’s something a bit light, subtle, and you’re right here, reminds the white wine.

Markus Raupach: Okay, so I have a try.

Raphaël Hilarion: Yes, yes.

Markus Raupach: Yes, same again. It starts with these slightly winey notes, and then it’s on the tongue, and then it’s really a light body, but it’s there. So it’s not watery. It’s just, I would say, noble. So really very pleasant. Also reminding a bit on wine, on gooseberry, also some fruity aroma, and then some hop is coming. Also, you have some bitterness in the finish, and a very nice mouthfeel, a creamy also some bready character, a little bit like sourdough. So a little bit, very complex. A lot of things you can taste and smell.

Raphaël Hilarion: I don’t have all the words the right one, but for me, it’s my favourite beer with the fonio. It is the one we sell the most because it’s fonio, because I think people just really like it, and it works really well in our climate here. It just fits, you know, with the country.

Markus Raupach: And how much fonio is in it?

Raphaël Hilarion: This one, there is a 20% of fonio.

Markus Raupach: And do you have to malt the fonio? Or is it just pure?

Raphaël Hilarion: No, you can’t malt it. We try, but it’s so small we don’t have the tools for it. And I think it’s just too small. You just use the fonio as it is. So we have the whole system, you know, to break the grain and to keep something like look like couscous. It’s sandy, as small as the sand, looks like couscous. And you just put it into the hot water and you let it get bigger and then just brew it into the first step of the mashing. And it works really well. It’s very easy to use.

Markus Raupach: And can you do something with the spent grain, with the leftovers?

Raphaël Hilarion: Yes, absolutely. So we use the spent grain. We did a collaboration with an ice cream company. So we have an ice cream with fonio and barley malt. It’s really good. It’s very good. And, you know, the small grain, so to eat it like this it can be very different. It’s very sandy, you know. So some people don’t like it, but into an ice cream, it gives a kind of crunch, which is very nice. It tastes like praline, which the fonio doesn’t taste like it, but they toast it and they use it into the ice cream. It’s really good. It’s very, very good. We did also some biscuits with it, which transform into flour to make some bread. And we give it to a soap company. They use that in the soap also. Fonio beer.

Markus Raupach: So would you say fonio is growing in Africa, or at least in Senegal now, more and more? Or is it just a very small part?

Raphaël Hilarion: I think some people are very pushing, you know, to value the fonio. So you could see more and more the Senegalese diaspora would look for something West African. So they will look for different grain, you know, as fonio, sorghum and millet. People mostly use with the rice here. So, you know, like all the plates are made with a base of rice. If you change fonio, it would get the sauce differently, very differently. So it’s hard, but people are curious and they try it. But the good thing is, fonio, it’s very good for you.

Markus Raupach: Yes, very healthy grain, and also the original, more or less from Africa. So it’s great to support that. What else beers do you do? So we were talking about the stout. We now had the collaboration with Brooklyn. So what other beers are in your portfolio?

Raphaël Hilarion: We have nine beers now. So an IPA with rice, a stout with rice, we have a sorghum beer with pepper from Cameroon, and we have the cassava, it looks like couscous that we use. This is a lager. Then we have a fruit seasonal mango beer. We have also 100% Senegalese grain beer called Dakaroise and this is with 80% of millet and 20% of rice. We malt the millet too. And we have a bissap beer. Bissap is one of the juice that people drink here. It tastes a little bit like red fruit and sherry, I would say. The next one would be a spicy beer with pimiento.

Markus Raupach: Also sounds interesting. When I was in South Africa, I also learned a lot of local herbs from that region, of course. That was, for me, the most interesting beer, because you can get like an international lager everywhere in the world. But this very special things, which also have a special taste, and also maybe some healthy ingredients, and also really original stuff that is really interesting. We had a lot of talks because they asked me, what could we do for South Africa to have, like an iconic beer? They thought of an African pils or something like that. But I said, okay, that doesn’t make sense. If you try to grow hops and reach the same what hops like in US or in New Zealand are. But you have your herbs, you have your fruits, you have your wood, you have your culture, your grains, so use that. And I think that is really a key and a lot of possibility for the future, which is, in general, a fantastic thing. In terms of brewing, maybe last thing, what about your brewery? How does that look like? Is it like stainless steel you imported from somewhere? Or did you build it yourself? Or what about your brewery?

Raphaël Hilarion: We have a very small brewery for now. We just bought a new one that would come very soon. You can’t really find the tools here. There’s nothing that exists for the beer industry. We have to import, of course, the barley malts from Europe, we have to import the hops, we’re trying to use as many hops we can from Africa. It’s come from South Africa. The grain here, we malt it so the sorghum and the millet. Then, of course, we use the water from here. And I think we will try, at some point, when we have the tools to make our own yeast, an African yeast, that would be great. Because I think you can find some very interesting here.

Markus Raupach: I think so there must be yeast in Africa. So especially in a region where the rainforest is.

Raphaël Hilarion: Now there is a new barley malt from Malteurop that is made in Ethiopia. But in Africa, it’s harder to get things from your neighbour country than from another country in Europe or America. It’s really hard. So we try to work on that. So hard. And I think in a few years, things will change.

Markus Raupach: I hope so. That would be really great and a good development also for the whole economy and everything. What are your plans for the future? So developing more beers, or developing more throughout Senegal? Or having, like daughter brewery somewhere else? Or what is the idea?

Raphaël Hilarion: We try to extend our beer, maybe export it to Europe and America. This is something we want to try, and we will try, you know, to propose our beer to like the Senegalese restaurant in France. That’s how we’re going to start. One of the priority right now is to finish our brewery, because we are brewing in our home. It’s been about three years now, we just moved from other place. Is getting bigger, but it’s pretty small, and now we find finally a brewery. So all our focus is there right now. So what we want to do is to have our taproom there and grow the grain, you know, that we use near the brewery, because there’s a big garden. So we could tell to the people the story about the grain, and they could see it and see how it works. So we would probably do some workshop and things like this.

Markus Raupach: That is a fantastic idea. And if people want to visit you, they fly to Dakar, and then you can go by like Uber? Or how can they find you?

Raphaël Hilarion: There’s our number on the Maison Kalao, the Instagram. So you can just go on that, send us a text, and we will welcome them.

Markus Raupach: Fantastic. So we put that also on the show notes. And so I say thank you very much for your time, for the beer, it was great. And you have a beautiful day. I hope today looks very beautiful here on the video with your palm tree in the background. So I’m very curious to visit you. So thank you very much again.

Raphaël Hilarion: Anytime. Thank you, Markus. Have a good day.

BierTalk – der Podcast rund ums Bier. Alle Folgen unter www.biertalk.de.