Making malt: Barley for beer and a lot more

Posted 8/16/19

What’s the chance of buying a craft beer at a local brew pub made with malt from barley grown in the area?

“Pretty good,” is the confident response of Rick Redd, regional manager …

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Making malt: Barley for beer and a lot more

Posted

What’s the chance of buying a craft beer at a local brew pub made with malt from barley grown in the area?

“Pretty good,” is the confident response of Rick Redd, regional manager of barley operations at Briess Malt and Ingredients Co. “We service 85 to 90 percent of craft brewers in the country.”

Local barley growers are part of a national story.

Redd and his Briess operations team west of Ralston are primed to receive up to 3.8 million bushels of barley in the 2019 harvest that will pour in during August.

Slowed by a cool, wet growing season, the barley harvest is about two weeks behind a normal year.

The first truckload was received by Briess on July 31 — the only truck to deliver in July. Usually barley deliveries are flowing by July 25.

“We’re about a week late starting to receive some of the crop, but overall I think the crop is two weeks behind,” Redd said. “There’s a lot of barley almost ready to go.”

The cool, wet weather of the growing season is anticipated to cut into barley yield and quality. Both are expected to be average.

Barley responds well to cool and wet early on in the growing process, Redd said. “But we just had a little too much cool and wet.  We needed hot weather and didn’t get it.”

“I think our yields this year are going to be all over the board, “ Redd said.  “Seeding and timing were different grower to grower because of the cool temperatures and moisture ... and we got hit with a pretty good hail storm in the Shoshone River valley that did some damage.”

It all translates into an anticipated average crop of 120 to 130 bushes per acre, down about 10 percent from the 130 to 140 bushel yields of 2018, he said.

At the same time, there is some good news for the barley harvest. Briess acreage in malt barley grown in northwest Wyoming and southern Montana in 2019 nearly doubled over 2018, and that means more dollars in growers’ hands and back into the community.

The previous peak year for barley acreage in the area was in 2015. 

And then there is product diversification.  The barley grown for Briess and rail-shipped  to Wisconsin malt houses doesn’t all end up in beer production.

“Forty percent of our barley goes into food products,” Redd said. “Malt barley powder has a sweeter flavor than regular flour.”

The end users of the malt barley powder are many — from bread and pizza dough to cereals, cookies, energy bars  and, of course,  malted milk balls.

The pace of the harvest is about to pick up at the Briess delivery station west of Ralston.

“The week of the 12th of August is going to be real busy,” he said. “We’re usually done by Labor Day,  but this year it’s going to be a week or two after that.”

And what kind of weather is Redd praying for in the weeks ahead?

“Hot and dry. And no hail,” he pleaded.

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