If you haven’t experienced this, you’re in for a treat when you do. When they run the freshly malted grain through their grist mills, they are knocked out by the strength and richness of the beautiful aromas coming from the malt. The first thing you hear from brewers who get a bag of fresh malt is about the aroma. About the leftover grains that were distributed to the winning brewers as prizes, he said, “The rest of us are envious that they get to brew again in the near future with these quality malts.” The winning beer – ingredient details Local malts bring more than freshness Walkup thanked Sam Fonda of Weathered Ground Brewery, Brent Manning of Riverbend Malt House, and Charles Bockway of Brilliant Stream for providing the malts to the club. We would love to do a competition like this again.” I heard many comments about how good these beers were and especially how fun it was to pay attention to the malt profiles as we tasted them. Overall, I think these were the best beers our club has made, especially considering they were mostly lighter beers which would have not had the capability to disguise off-flavors. “Our club as a whole delighted in the tasting of the beers the competitors brewed. A number of the brewers experienced how great the malts smelled when crushed and tasted during brew days,” Walkup said. “Those who brewed and took advantage of brewing with the provided local malts seemed to enjoy this competition the most. KVHC President Jedidiah Walkup said club members really enjoyed the activity. Winners were awarded gift certificates from Breathe Wine & Culture, a local homebrew supply shop in Cross Lanes, WV, and they also received the leftover malt that wasn’t used in the competition. Beers by club members Chris Brown and Aaron Silber placed 2nd and 3rd place, respectively. On September 30, the club competition took place, and a pale lager brewed by Chis Butler took top honors. Erin McCoy and KVHC President Jedidiah Walkup tally votes for selecting the best beer A late September date was set to debut the beers and hold a competition to decide which brewer did the best job featuring local malt in their beer. Participants selected the grain mix they wanted from the three malts. Three different malts were made available: Cumberland Pilsner, Vienna, and Great Chit. Back in the summer, working with Riverbend Malt House in Asheville, the club arranged to receive and distribute to its members (those 13 who signed on to the activity) enough grain for each to make a batch of beer. Club competition picks best beerĪt the suggestion of this article’s author, members of the Kanawha Valley Homebrew Club in West Virginia recently took on the challenge to learn about using extra-fresh malts sourced from a small, regional craft malt house. The bag of malt from which their order was filled could have been malted many months earlier. Homebrewers, who typically purchase their grains in small quantities from homebrew supply shops, have no control over how fresh the malt is when it arrives to them. And it makes a difference.įor homebrewers, however, obtaining ultra-fresh malt is much more rare. Malts from these craft maltsters are often shipped out when they are no more than a week or two old. But what many hadn’t appreciated (because they hadn’t experienced it) was the big flavor impact of freshly malted grain versus one even a few months old.Ī growing number of small commercial brewers have grown more appreciative of malt freshness and are now obtaining more of their malts from small craft malt houses based in their regions of the country. Sure, brewers knew that you don’t want to store malt for a couple of years or it would get stale. However, one ingredient in the past where extra freshness wasn’t seen as quite so important was the malt. Something beginning brewers quickly learn is that their hops and yeast work much better if they’re fresh. That is also true for beer brewing ingredients. Growing respect for malt freshnessĪs everyone knows, freshness makes a huge difference to flavor in most food ingredients. Left to right are Charles Bockway of Brilliant Stream (competition host), Butler, Chris Brown (2nd place), and Aaron Silber (3rd place). Kanawha Valley Homebrew Club members selected the beer brewed by Chis Butler as the best entry from beers brewed with grains of Riverbend Malt House. The exercise ended with a club competition in which 13 brewers competed to see who could make the best beer with craft malts from Riverbend Malt House in Asheville. The Kanawha Valley Homebrew Club (KVHC) recently completed an exercise in learning to use regionally-sourced craft malts.
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