We recently asked our Board of Directors to articulate some of the top reasons why beverage producers and their fans are leaning into products made with craft malt. They had so much to say that we started this series‚ the Choose Craft Malt series, to scribe the countless ways that craft maltsters are shaking up the malt industry, and why now is the perfect time to join the party.
Let’s get right into it. Here’s reason number one of more than we can count to Choose Craft Malt: Built for Craft
The malt supply at-large is a globalized, commodity-based system. It’s built to efficiently serve a commodity beverage industry. Conversely, craft malt is built from the ground up, designed for craft brewers and distillers so they may augment their recipes with local flavor and build compelling brands around ingredients.
Craft malt redefines what’s possible when the malt supply is based on regional availability and growing conditions, with a sole focus on craft brewers, distillers, and other artisan producers.
These producers have the ability to work directly with a craft malt house to develop the highest quality and uniquely flavored base, specialty, and roasted malts for their mashbills— not to mention glean process and efficiency tips for utilizing the ingredients on their specific equipment. The ability to offer direct feedback to their supplier partners, and vice versa, creates better beer and spirits.
Working with a craft maltster who can communicate with you directly is priceless, says Todd Olander of Root Shoot Malting, “instead of going through all the different channels that sometimes you have to go through with a larger company. We want to rely on people making better beer, and we’re willing to make sure that all of the people we’re selling malt to are succeeding,” he said in episode 303 of the Master Brewers Podcast. “If they don’t succeed, then we don’t succeed.”
“Everyone has different equipment that allows them to put their own distinctive spin on flavor,” adds Brent Manning, another podcast guest. “To Todd’s point, have that conversation with your maltster about what style of beer you’re thinking about brewing, what flavors you’re looking for; that open dialogue is one great step to building a better beer.”
Summing it up, craft malt allows brewers and distillers to build more local, eye-to-eye relationships with their malt supply in a way that consumers increasingly value. And when the beverage industry is built on bonds like these, we all stand to benefit through a more innovative, flavorful, and resilient future.
…..
Photo by Root Shoot Malting