While it’s generally understood— and celebrated— that the place in which ingredients are grown impacts flavor, skeptics of terroir in malt-based beverages seem to focus on the etymology of the word; especially because of its origins in winemaking. Terroir as Webster defines it is “the combination of factors including soil, climate, and sunlight that gives…
Field To Bench, And To Consumer Too: Southern Illinois University Fermentation Science Institute Provides Hands-On Experience All The Way To The Marketplace
In 2022, the Craft Maltsters Guild hosted its Advanced Class in Craft Malt Production course at the Southern Illinois University (SIU) Fermentation Science Institute in Carbondale, where participants got hands-on experience with SIU’s pilot malting system. This malting facility makes SIU’s fermentation science studies a one-of-a-kind pedagogy. As of this year, the program is undertaking…
Field to Bench: Genetics, Test Plots, and Terroir
By Meghan Howes, Contributing Writer for RadCraft Long before the term “craft malt” entered the beer industry’s imagination, enterprising scientist Dr. Jamie Sherman was breeding and testing barley and other grains. Working within Montana State University’s (MSU) Department of Plant Sciences and Plant Pathology, Sherman studied the composition of several grains in an attempt to better understand the genetics…
Field to Bench: An Introduction to North America’s Malt Testing Labs
By Meghan Howes, Contributing Writer for RadCraft The malts finding their way into mash tuns these days vary widely. And more often than not, those barley kernels were coaxed and coddled from the second they hit the dirt until they found themselves packaged and headed out. In 2013, five craft maltsters were operating in the…
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