Why "malt geekery" is non existent?

Malt is the bread and hops are the filling and yeast is the yeast. Expect that sometimes malt is also the filling. So you sometimes have a bread-on-bread sandwich. OK bad analogy.

 

Can we at least all agree on this?

 

Yeah, it's called scotch/bourbon/whisk(e)y.

 

I personally think that it's because hops aren't necessarily an easily acquired taste. It takes time to appreciate the subtleties whereas malts are generally sweeter and more approachable to your average palate. If it's an easy to acquire flavor, some people dismiss it as "amateur" stuff. I honestly have no idea. This is just my theory.

I love when breweries make a beer focused on the malt bill. One of my favorites was Brooklyn Backbreaker, which used floor-malted Maris Otter right from the UK (Garrett Oliver himself raked the grain around, or so the press release said). Out of all the beers Brooklyn has made this is still my favorite of theirs. Outstanding beer and it's too bad it didn't receive as much attention as it deserved (not enough citra/mosaic/nelson I guess)

 

Somehow I doubt he was talking about this fine product

 

If we are digging around for analogies to me malt, water, and yeast are the "dish" and hops are the "seasoning." You can make a beer without hops, the other three ingredients are essential.

 

You guys need to get on the Golden Promise train. Weyermann Extra Hell Pils-bombs coming through

 

I am all for malt geekery, but "butt malts" is too far!

 

Yeah, that's how hops have always been described by brewers, as seasoning.

 

I love malt! Of course I work in the malt barely production/procurement industry here in Idaho so I'm kinda required to be a malt head

Cheers

 

Well, Anheuser-Busch tried to get malt geekery off the ground in the mid-1960s:

 

..It will become a thing,sooner or later.
It will just take time when the hop-trend has run its course.
I mean, look at the wine world. 15,20 years ago- at least in germany, it was all about primary fruit aromas in good rieslings. Now, those belong in entry-level Rieslings, and wine nerds demand, for the most part, stone and mineral notes in high-level rieslings. Fruit in a großes Gewächs white wine is almost universally frowned upon. Especially nerd tastes change due to fashion trends...The beer world as an international geek-phenomenon is still young.

 

I did a double take when I saw Chevalier listed as a variety. I was under the impression that it was not cultivated then, I was wrong. Maybe it was phased out due to Maris Otter, which was introduced mid 60s. @patto1ro might have some info on that.

Crisp is malting limited quantities of Chevalier. Bell's got some a couple of years ago and made a wonderful ale with it, the malt flavors were rich and nutty.

 

I think there's some truth to this among people who on some level [whether they admit it to themselves or not] want to feel like their tastes are more advanced than the average person. No judgment intended there, it's just human nature. What's interesting though is the recent swing towards sweet, citrusy, American dry-hopped IPAs has made the IPA approachable to average palate. For example I have at least four friends who nearly exclusively drink lite beer or IPAs, and rarely anything in between. The IPA is the new mass-appeal craft beer.

Here and there you can see some beer nerds rejecting these citrusy IPAs that are the all rage, but they are far outnumbered by the rest of the market still. I suspect this minority who rejects the new IPAs movement is fueled at least in part by an counter-culture sentiment [which is incredibly difficult to quantify]. But, if this minority group continues to grow or coalesce around malt-forward beers some brewers (not all) might find it profitable to cater to that niche. I don't think we're there yet, but maybe in a few years... Who knows....

 

Btw for someone who works in the barley industry it's a shame I misspelled it I'm blaming my phone and the inability to go back and edit a post!

 

Spotted at The Rake in London in January.

 

I'm pretty sure that Valley Malt here in MA have been growing some Chevalier. The rise of craft maltsters in the US is one of the more exciting things going on in craft brewing these days. Brewers working closely with maltsters to get exactly the characteristics they are looking for shows a lot of care and is the opposite of covering your faults by throwing some extra hops at a beer.

 

Andea Stanley of Valley Malt said she got some Chevalier barley samples and was propagating it to commercial quantities at the 2014 NHC.

There are now 49 craft Maltsters in the US, they have about 0.5% of the market - source was a malt seminar that Andrea Stanley presented at recently in Mi.

 

I was at her presentation with John Mallett from Bell's at the 2013 NHC. There is a good interview with them on the Beersmith podcast.

In that interview they reference a new malt sensory method from the American Society of Brewing Chemists for people who want to figure out the flavor contributions from different malts (beyond chewing on the malt). I am hoping to try it with my homebrew club.

 

I was there, too.

Haven't watched the podcast yet, but she talked of the hot steep method and had 5 malts to evaluate that way. Much better than just chewing on the malt.

http://blog.brewingwithbriess.com/w...6/09/Briess_Whitepaper_ASBCHotSteepMethod.pdf