Warwick Hill has found an unusual way to recycle brewery grain — feed it to camels, then use their dung to make beer. At his Humpalicious farm in Robe, South Australia, Hill keeps around 50 dromedary camels, each one a reminder of an unexpected turn of history. Camels first arrived in Australia in the 1860s, imported by British colonists to help transport goods across the vast, dry interior. When cars replaced them, many were simply set free. Today, Australia is home to somewhere between 300,000 and 1 million feral camels, the largest wild camel population on Earth.
Most of these camels cause headaches for farmers and land managers, trampling fences, fouling waterholes, and competing with livestock for scarce food. But on Hill's farm, they've become a small but growing business. He sells camel milk for A$20 (about $14 US) per liter — money that helps support the farm alongside tourism and a homestay. He believes the milk, which he says is one of the closest animal milks to human milk, offers real health benefits, especially for people with allergies.
"We haven't met anybody that can't have camel milk," Hill told AFP. "If you're kind and fair with them, they generally reciprocate." The market isn't huge yet — camels simply don't produce as much milk as cows — but Hill thinks it could be much larger if prices come down.
Down the road at Robe Town Brewery, brewer Maris Biezaitis has found another creative use for the local camels. The brewery takes leftover grain from making beer, feeds it to Hill's camels, then collects the dung to smoke the malt for a dark, smoky porter called "Holy Smokes." The 8.2% alcohol beer, sold in bottles decorated with a camel dressed as the Virgin Mary, has developed a small but devoted following.
"It doesn't really taste like dung," Biezaitis hastened to add. "In fact, it tastes and smells a bit more like a peat-smoked malt. Smoky beer."
Farther north, in the remote town of Marree about 600 kilometers from Adelaide, camels take on a different role entirely — as racing machines. Every year, hundreds of spectators gather for the Marree Camel Cup, where riders vault onto bareback camels and race through the outback dust. This year's winner was a camel called Young Gun, ridden by Patrick Dennis. First-time racer Joanne Bell, 55, said she fell in love with camels working at a petting farm. "A jockey's a jockey, whether it's a camel or a horse," she told AFP. Regular competitor Kyrraley Woodhouse offered advice for newcomers: pick a camel with personality.
"You would want a little bit of temper, a little bit of fire in them. Something that's got a heart, that's going to run."
Australia's camel industry remains modest. Just 68 camels were exported in 2026, mostly to Malaysia and Indonesia, while camel meat exports brought in more than $3.9 million in 2024. But from milk and beer to racing, Australians are finding unexpected ways to turn a colonial-era import into something useful — and surprisingly charming.