After Canada’s Hogarth Malt took home the 2024 Malt Cup, we caught up with Aaron and Alex Hogarth to learn more about their family floor malting operation.
Tell us about how you got started.
Aaron was a homebrewer many years ago. He got into commercial brewing and did that for a handful of years. He kept having people say hey I have craft grow malt barley, can you use it? There was definitely a niche and a need that Aaron recognized during his time brewing. He wanted to bring the grain to glass.
What would you say are the primary reasons producers in your area invest in Hogarth malt?
We offer value that isn’t possible with a multi-national maltster. We offer personal connections to us, to our farmers (via farm days and tours so they can get involved with the process), custom malt, and collaboration. Even though we do have big players around us, producers brewers aren’t getting the same accessibility or ability to fine tune products to their needs that we provide. We’re adding something to what’s already available on the market, catering more to those looking to bring in European malt from the UK. A lot of brewers are replacing these imported malts and they’ve noticed the same or better performance that can certainly be credited to freshness. Our malts are regeneratively grown grains, floor malted and never pushed for expediency during the process. We believe slow and steady, floor malted grains make the best beers.
Tell us how you go about quality control.
Data record keeping is huge for us. We’re only doing 1 tonne batches— small batch sizes, but high volume with an all modular floor malting system. We have to make sure everything is consistent batch to batch.
Another thing we do differently is in-house labs for all of our products. With small batch sizes the economy of scale does not fit for having each lot tested with a 3rd party lab. We worked with Montana State University to develop in-house labs on friability, extract, SRM, and moisture for example. The ability to have instant feedback after each batch or roast is crucial to our ability to be constantly improving processes and in turn, our malt.
It’s well known from our customers that they can trust Hogarth malt to do what it needs to do in the brewhouse.
You have a huge specialty malt portfolio! What equipment, processes, and sales tactics have you had to implement to offer such a full lovibond of products?
Our plan from the beginning was to become a ‘one stop shop’ for brewers. The roaster was the main equipment purchase specifically focused on specialty malts, but we also designed our kiln and overall system to allow for the greatest versatility in product development. Over time we have slowly built out new products to ensure they have the character and traits we are after in each one. A huge role in our specialty malt development has actually been our customers, and working with them to create the products they want from us.
What else would you like for folks to know about Hogarth?
We love this industry, the folks involved from the farmers growing barley, to the brewers and distillers crafting beverages. It is absolutely amazing the knowledge, creativity and determination we interact with on the daily. If it was not for these passionate people, we would not be here!