Hello All,

It has been a busy quarter for the Board of Directors and we have some exciting updates coming out of it. Here are the high notes:  

California, Here We Come

In case you missed it, the 2024 Craft Malt Conference was announced for February 23rd and 24th at the UC Davis Conference Center in Davis, CA. Information about our community’s conference is live, along with this year’s RFP process for submitting session proposals— due September 8! We’ll be updating this information actively in the coming months, so check back often for news about the 2024 Malt Cup, early bird registration, sponsorship, speakers, and more.  

Thank you to Harmonie Bettenhausen and Curtis Davenport who are leading the conference planning committee! 

The Search For Our New ED Is Complete

In June, our Board kicked off the search for our new Executive Director with a call for applicants and job posting. We were extremely impressed by the outstanding candidates who expressed interest in and applied for this position, and we are incredibly thankful to this community for their efforts in spreading the word far and wide to recruit these candidates. 

Over the past few months, the Search Committee conducted a rigorous evaluation of all applications and held multiple interviews with several particularly well-qualified candidates. With significant consideration given to the skills, experiences, and expertise needed to successfully guide the Craft Maltsters Guild in its next phase of growth, the Committee recommended and the Board has selected Alice Blayne Allard to serve in this critical role. She is pleased to start work as the Guild’s new Executive Director on September 1.  

Alice brings with her a life long passion for local sourcing and a breadth of malt-relevant knowledge from agricultural marketing to cooperage. Most importantly, her extensive non-profit leadership and administration experience will be instrumental in supporting the craft malt community in its next big push for market share.

I hope that you will all join us in welcoming Alice to our organization. Meet her during our Craft Malt Week Industry Update webinar on Tuesday September 26th at 3:00pm EST. 

Craft Malt Week 2023

Speaking of Craft Malt Week, mark your calendars for September 22 to 29, and read our ten suggestions for how to get involved on the blog. Our annual celebration of craft malt is timed with the harvest moon and provides us all with an opportunity for reflection on the season’s harvest— be it the grains straight from the field, the first batches of malt from a new crop, or a special beverage which was crafted to celebrate these grains. 

We hope that you will find a way to celebrate Craft Malt Week in your own community and help to spread the mission of small, local, and independent malt wherever you are. Please add your Craft Malt Week events to our event calendar so we can share them on social media!

Thanks For Reading

Many people and organizations collaborated to make this newsletter one of the Guild’s most content-rich publications to-date. 

Included in this edition: 

Check out 2023 harvest report spotlights from across North America in Quality Corner. 

Read about how Craft Malt Certified™ distillery Thornton Distilling became the first in the country to distill Austrian-bred and Indiana-grown Edelweiss 2-row winter barley in our Member Highlight. 

Get inspired about The Community Malt initiative at Harlem Brewing Co. in DEI In Action. 

Meet the folks behind an Alabama malting barley project in Field To Bench.

And much, much more.  

Enjoy!

-Hillary Barile, Board of Directors President 

 

Feature photo courtesy Red Shed Malting