Developing Our Malt Consciousness
Early in my writing career, brewers inevitably described base malts—the vast majority of the grist in most beers—as “two-row.” And proudly. That label indicated it wasn’t the lesser, higher-protein six-row variety. But those are large categories (like russet and crab are categories of apples) and don’t suggest anything about what the actual barley variety was—and even less about how it was malted. In those days, if a brewer wanted a malty flavor, they’d get it with specialty malts.
Over time, I began to understand that if the malt was generic enough to be accurately characterized by category, it wasn’t going to give beer much flavor. But what really made me appreciate malt as a craft unto itself was traveling through Europe, where beer styles were far fewer, less intense, and characterized by small differences. In places like Czechia and Bavaria, pale lagers were regularly made with a single malt. Particularly in Bavaria, where the signature style was a 5% beer made with 18 BUs of delicate hops, malt was the whole ball game. Yet despite this fact, the beers didn’t taste the same. It didn’t take me long to poke around and realize what was going on—breweries had access to dozens of different malthouses, each making their pilsner malts slightly differently, from a range of different barley varieties. Helles taste different in Bavaria because the malt is different.
Malt Consciousness
The same was true and even more pronounced in the UK, where ale brewers didn’t just know which facility made their malt, but had passionate opinions about the variety. As an American, where Maris Otter is synonymous with English beer, I was surprised to hear brewers bark out unfamiliar names: Pearl, Tipple, Optic. That was a decade ago; now they’d probably say Laureate, Planet, or Craft. And much as in Bavaria, those flavors mattered. In a 4% cask bitter, the differences among barley and malts are magnified, creating distinct differences.
In the US, domestic breweries have historically had very specific needs for their beer, and “character” wasn’t near the top of list. If you’re making a domestic light lager, “two-row” malt is fine. Because all the beer in the US up until 1980 was domestic light lager (and practically all the beer for the next couple decades), the barley and malt industry became streamlined to produce this neutral, light-flavored product. It created a structural issue for craft breweries looking for malt flavors, but worse, it created a zymurgic blind spot.
If you look back at the evolution of craft brewing, brewers went through eras of dawning hop and yeast consciousnesses. At one time brewers were happy enough with a handful of C-hops and some Chico yeast. Now breeders release multiple new hops a year, and yeast labs proliferate. Brewers are constantly tinkering with ingredients to produce new flavors, and they’re highly attuned to subtle differences.
But what about malt? I had to spent eight days in Bavaria before something magical happened in my appreciation of beer. Because the main difference among the beers I drank (and drank and drank) came from the malt, I was able to tune into that wavelength. For the first time, I developed “malt consciousness.” I understood the role malt played—something many American brewers and most American drinkers still lack. Brewers are a lot more sophisticated now, and they understand that you’re not going to make a very interesting helles from generic two-row pale. Yet I’m not sure we’ve quite arrived at full malt consciousness.
Take for example pilsners, a style brewers commonly make with imported malt. The trouble is, Americans don’t have nearly the selection of German malts Germans have. Weyermann, a common source, makes a great pilsner malt with a strong, distinctive character. Brewers love it because of that character. It really makes a lager pop. The problem is that it tastes like Weyermann pilsner malt, which is exactly why so many breweries in Bavaria use different malthouses.
What American needs is the kind of variety of malthouses and barley varieties other countries have—and the kind of variety they enjoy when choosing yeasts or hops.
Craft Malting
You probably all saw where this was headed. The wonderful thing about brewing now is that we do have these malthouses. They’re mostly quite small and because of that, expensive. Many can’t provide breweries with a reliable source of base malts for a year of regular-production beer. I’m hoping that is a momentary problem, however, and that growing interest will allow them to increase production and lower prices—because these malts are really interesting, flavorful, and even economically and environmentally beneficial. A world with dozens of viable small malthouses has the potential to transform beer.
Last year I visited one of them, Skagit Valley, and wrote a long post. It provides a nice overview of the breeding, agronomy, and flavor impact these companies can deliver. Skagit Valley is possibly the biggest of the so-called craft malthouses (a fraught term, but useful enough in a pinch), and the project is more ambitious and well-funded than many smaller outfits. That’s mainly a matter of scale, though. Like Skagit Valley, many malthouses are working with local universities and breeders to create region-specific barley varieties. Like craft breweries, craft maltings are interested in flavor impact, and they’ll be able to deliver malt that is unique to place and distinctive. They’ll also be able to help mitigate the vulnerability barley has shown to global warming, and help support smaller family farms. For so many reasons, a national network of small malthouses will be fantastic for the American beer industry.
There are likely other, as-yet unanticipated benefits of this development as well. European beer styles evolved in tandem with local barleys and malt. There’s every reason to believe that would happen in the US, too, with this dawning malt consciousness. Might it evolve into an American lager? Or perhaps some of those early US styles are ripe for a revisit with new malts—amber ales, American wheats, golden ales, red ales?
The malting drums at Skagit Valley.
Equally intriguing is how different base malts might affect IPAs. As this style has evolved so quickly, we’ve only begun to understand the interaction of hops with different processes and in its interaction with yeast. What role might malt play in this? It seemed like watershed moments when we began to understand biotransformation and even the effect of ester-rich yeasts on IPAs. It is far from fanciful to imagine malts might spark the next evolution in this most American of styles?
For my money, malts are the most interesting thing happening in American brewing right now. In what appears to be a fairly mature industry, craft malts have a chance to inject a new wave of real change and innovation into our glasses. If you’re interested in going deep on this stuff, consider attending the Craft Maltsters Conference this year. You can check out the schedule here—they’ll be covering a lot of interesting stuff. And if you can’t attend, at least keep your eyes open for interesting malts out there in the world. Perhaps we’re not far from a time when your can of beer will list not just the hop varieties inside, but the barleys and malthouse as well.