Local malts

I would say buy a sack, try out something simple, but not reliant solely on malt for flavor, to test it out (say a SMaSH pale ale, but not too hoppy), and then use the rest of the sack to really get into it, based on intitial reaction.

 

I personally have not brewed with local (Pennsylvania) malt but I have consumed a number of commercial beers brewed with local malt. For example a number of Sly Fox beers brewed using local malt. I thought those beers were OK but after drinking them I was personally never motivated to buy those malts for my homebrewing. Based upon my commercial beer drinking experiences I would suggest you will likely not obtain "trash" but I do not think these local malts would be superior to non-local malts that you could buy (at likely a cheaper price).

Please report back your thoughts about your beers brewed using local malts.

Cheers!

 

Guess it depends on how much value you put into buying local. LOTS of arguments to be made on either side of that.

 

Malting is not for amateurs or part timers. Malt is probably the last corner of brewing that has not benefitted from the keep it small and local craft beer mantra. Malting is not really done regionally either. Basically the smallest malt house of note is Weyerman. And they are still global.

Even the sprawling industrial mega brewers shut down malting operations a long time ago.

What I'm getting at is malting is hard to do well and hard to do profitably. It is a super specialized discipline, demands repeatable results and is expensive on a small scale.

BUT that is changing. I am told decent local malt is getting out. Though I am not convinced it is a niche that can be filled.

So try the base malt. What's to lose? I do doubt we are going to see a great local specialty malt but I could be wrong too. Local coffee roasters are booming. Maybe malts time has come.

 

I have. I did not have favorable results. But then I compare everything to Weyermann.

 

Can't speak for the one you listed, but there are two in Maine. I have used mostly Blue Ox Malt, and honestly can't truly compare them to any others as I have such limited experience other then to say, I like my beer, and others do too.

Also my Home Brew Club received some malt and hops from Thrall farms in Connecticut. We split it up and I am bottling mine this week end. Their Munich was dark, but the pale was tasty.

I would say give them a chance and you might be surprised.

 

My LHBS of Keystone Homebrewing sells local malt from Deer Creek Malting.

http://www.keystonehomebrew.com/shop/catalogsearch/result/index/?limit=all&q=Deer+Creek&x=22&y=3

More information about Deer Creek Malting:

https://deercreekmalt.com/

Cheers!

 

This got me curious so I looked up AB InBev's most recent annual report. (You can find it at EDGAR. The company still trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the "BUD" ticker. You want Form 20-F.)

Anyway long story short, AB InBev owns 24 malting plants around the world. It also owns 6 "Rice / Corn grits mills," 4 hop farms, a guaraná farm, 6 glass bottle plants, 4 bottle cap plants, 7 can plants, and a sand quarry (presumably as a source of raw material for one of its bottle plants).

Quick side note - being able to read all of that stuff on a government website is kind of a triumph of capitalism. From AB InBev's annual report I learned the following:

The first step in the brewing process is making wort by mixing malt with warm water and then gradually heating it to around 75°C in large mash tuns to dissolve the starch and transform it into a mixture, called “mash,” of maltose and other sugars. The spent grains are filtered out and the liquid, now called “wort,” is boiled. Hops are added at this point to give a special bitter taste and aroma to the beer. The wort is boiled for one to two hours to sterilize and concentrate it, and extract the flavor and desired bitterness from the hops. Cooling follows, using a heat exchanger. The hopped wort is saturated with air, or oxygen, essential for the growth of the yeast in the next stage.

....

During the maturation process, the liquid clarifies as yeast and other particles settle. Further filtering gives the beer more clarity. Maturation varies by type of beer and can take as long as three weeks and then the beer is ready for packaging in kegs, cans or bottles.

As for local malt, I have used malt from Valley Malt, but not in a long time. (It's not really that local, being in Massachusetts, but it's pretty small, and I believe it supplies some of New York's "farm breweries," which are required to use a certain percentage of New York ingredients. So it's sort of honorary local.) I liked it. The quality was good, but also I'll just come out and say that part of brewing for me is the emotional connection with my ingredients. I love brewing with kveik partly because it makes tasty beer, but also because it's incredible to me that my beer is being fermented by yeast that spent the last several hundred years being handed down from parent to child, neighbor to neighbor, within a few-mile radius in Norway.

 

Just make sure any local maltster is having their malts tested at a reputable lab.

 

I used some Vermont malt and was less than impressed. would not buy it again, but would test it if available. Weyermans , simpsons, crisp , bairds and others were far superior.

if possible smell it and taste it before you buy.

local does not mean better!!!!!!

 

That is pretty awesome. I am aware ABI takes full control of everything they can but when you see the full scope of their materials pipeline it's just bananas. Only one guarana farm?

Though there is no mention of ABI's ownership of 3 diesel locomotive factories, 6 desalinization plants, 9 nuclear power facilities or the asphalt mill. The Vatican is impressed.

 

If you want a fun watch google ultimate factories Budweiser in YouTube it’s a 4 part series that’s is pretty awesome. I would post the link but you know. Spam.

 

The cream ale I brewed last weekend utilized Pilot Malt House Brewer's 2-row (42%) and 6-row (33%), from neighboring Michigan, I am told, with flaked corn making up the remainder. For whatever reason, this batch made the clearest wort I can recall and it tasted good. Obviously, this is a single anecdote, so it is difficult to make a meaningful endorsement.

FWIW, it cost me about 40 cents a pound more than I would have paid for Briess and Rahr malts (which, ironically, are more local to me), so my batch price was about $3 higher, or about 6 cents a glass. I lose that much change from my pocket every time I get up to get a beer. Dig deep under your couch cushions for loose change and give the little guy a try.

 

I live in East Anglia, so Simpsons, Crisp and Muntons are pretty much local to my area!

 

Do you have a preference among those Malting Companies?

Cheers!