Hops may generate most of the buzz when it comes to introducing exotic new varieties. But, in recent years, malt producers have also been quietly innovating around hearty new hybrid varietals and heirloom grains as brewers seek to impart unique flavors and character in their beers.
“Malts are developing a little bit slower than hops, but they really seem to be picking up steam right now,” says Ron Barchet, president and cofounder of Victory Brewing Co. (Downingtown, Pennsylvania). “They’re bringing back some older grains and trying new crosses, all in an effort to make a barley that’s better suited for malting for the craft brewer, as opposed to the macro brewer, who favors different qualities in a barley malt than we as craft brewers typically want.”
Victory is a member of the American Malting Barley Association, which works to encourage the production of high-quality malting barley within the United States. It also endorses new grain varieties that are agronomically viable and well suited for malting and brewing.
Like most larger craft brewers, Victory purchases the majority of its malt from major European maltsters who offer a much larger and more dependable supply of barley engineered for brewing all-malt beers. However, Barchet says that a stronger voice from craft brewers is helping to improve the overall quality, variety, and yield of American-grown-and-malted grains.
“We don’t have as much luck getting the flavor match with American grains, but as they are trying these new varieties and lowering the protein, for instance, [American malts] are getting much closer to what we would expect to see in a European malt,” Barchet says. “All the signs there are moving in a very positive direction.”
Craft brewers exerting greater influence
Some of the world’s largest malt producers are also starting to cater to the needs of American craft brewers. For instance, Weyermann Specialty Malts, based in Germany and founded in 1879, claims an 80 percent export share of specialty malts worldwide, with the United States being its largest export market. The company is attuned to what’s happening in craft beer and continues to develop new offerings around those preferences.
“We are inspired by customer requests as well as from new trends among the breweries,” says Weyermann Press Officer Beate Ferstl. “Even general consumer trends—such as organic, sustainability, and heirloom varieties—can be found in our new product creations.”
Weyermann’s line of Barke malts, for example, was introduced in 2014 and revives an heirloom grain known for producing base malt that’s well suited for brewing full-bodied, malt-forward beers such as craft pale ales and Pilsners. Although Weyermann reports that the yield for Barke barley is about 20 percent less than for the hybrid varieties favored by large-scale growers, the company cites a commitment to its network of contract farmers and to craft brewers as reasons for reviving the offering.
It all points toward a trend of increasing variety among specialty malts as well as a greater degree of communication and input from brewers as to the malts they would like to see.
“For years you basically got what you got” when it came to sourcing malts from large producers, says Mitch Steele, head brewer with Stone Brewing Co. (Escondido, California). “They were making the call on what varieties to use in their blends, where the malt was coming from, and on the analytical specs.
“What I’m seeing now though, is that craft brewers are taking malt to the same level as hops as far as their involvement in helping to develop and test new varieties. It’s coming.”
Regional craft maltsters serving regional brewers
A growing number of American craft maltsters are also filling a niche by providing regionally grown and processed malted grains. The Craft Maltsters Guild, an organization formed to promote craft malting in North America as well as uphold quality and safety standards, counts twenty-seven independent craft maltsters across the United States and Canada among its membership.
Although much smaller than industrial-scale producers, craft maltsters are helping to provide many local and regional craft brewers with distinctive malts that, in many cases, are grown by area farmers and malted in facilities less than a day’s drive from the brewery. Smaller batch sizes also mean that brewers often have more say over the specifications of how the grains are malted.
While the scale and consistency are not yet to a point to supply the largest craft brewers with all of the malt they need, many large brewers also look to craft maltsters when seeking to bring a unique quality and flavor to special projects.
When brewers at New Belgium Brewing Co. (Fort Collins, Colorado) were looking to impart a bit of local flavor into the second installment of its RyePA seasonal release, for instance, they turned to two of the country’s first craft maltsters—Colorado Malting in Alamosa, Colorado, and Riverbend Malt House in Asheville, North Carolina—to supply the malts.
Not only is the grain bill a nod to the fact that New Belgium will soon operate breweries in both states, but the specialty malts also bring a singular flavor and sense of place to the beer.
“Everybody in brewing is looking for something unique, and you can get a very unique product from [craft maltsters],” says New Belgium Brewer Matty Gilliland.
New Belgium ordered 17,000 pounds of Carolina Rye, an heirloom grain that’s been grown in the same region of North Carolina for more than 200 years, from Riverbend Malt House for RyePA, which will be included as a special seasonal release in New Belgium’s Folly twelve-packs.
“There’s a terroir to [locally grown grains], especially if it’s rye that’s been grown in North Carolina since before the Civil War,” says Brian Simpson, cofounder of Riverbend Malt House. “It offers a very unique flavor profile.
“Since we run small batches, we also have a lot of options here to customize a malt,” Simpson says. “We can make changes to the process to bring out different sugars and colors and still have a nice high extract and ease of use.”
Simpson notes that most small grains are grown for only a decade or two commercially before they need to be hybridized in order to overcome pressure from pests, disease, and bacteria, all of which can affect the yield.
“We think of a grain such as Maris Otter as being an old grain, but it’s only been grown for about fifty or sixty years,” Simpson says. “When you talk about something that’s 200 years old, that really is an heirloom grain. It’s a little bit smaller, a little bit tougher, and a little bit harder for a brewer to work with because it hasn’t been developed for malting as much, but the flavor profile is unique.
“And, regardless of the story, at the end of the day it’s all about flavor in the beer.”