Are malts the next big focus?

Maybe some souls need to be poured!?!

Cheers!

 

to add to this. Because I have access to amazing local malt here in Western Mass, I focus heavily on the malts going into my beers. I use nothing but the best. Likely most brewers, I have access to malts from Weyermann, Thomas Faucett, Rahr, Briess and others… but I try to highlight VM malts whenever appropriate. when the beer is leaning on the malt for its flavor and character, I tend to mention the particular malt in the description, or at least highlight the malt in some way as a selling point. Our saison has Spelt and this pretty amazing Wheat, so we talk about that.

Valley Malt as "micro" as they are, are producing 1000s of lbs a week and are in the middle of an expansion. We order from them on a regular basis and I happen to show up to the malt practically every week for some reason or another. They have offered wonderful malts consistently for brewers and distillers for the last 3-4 years. I am proud to say that for my beers, right now, I am using an average of about 25% Valley Malts / 75% malts from elsewhere. I range from 18% in Satisfaction IPA and Yellow, our kolsch style, to as much as 100% in our recent smoked lager brew… 60% and 70% respectively in my Witbier and Saison. I consider the style and design the beer using VM and others to fit our goal for the beer. It is actually quite deliberate.

The best part of Valley Malt is not that they grow barley, spelt, wheat, rye, corn, millet, buckwheat, etc just down the street(literally), but more so that their malt is top notch WORLD CLASS stuff. I wouldn't use it otherwise.

Can't wait for that roasted to get online so we can start customizing our chocolate wheat and roasted oats….

 

I dunno, I'm going with water.

 

Refreshing to hear this, and I think these custom malts really do make a difference. PS - I thought you might be Kona, a brewer from Hawaii, but realized who you are. Met you in passing and I've tasted many of your brews through the years and they are consistently excellent. Cheers and dap for doing local as much as you can.