CRAFT by Under My Host® Issue No. 17 Made in America: Part II | Page 82

W W W. C R A F T BY U M H . C O M
in those magic parallels to grow hops, so malt was kind of the next best
thing. Others were surprised to find out that they couldn’t get any local
malt and saw that as a market opportunity. We also have several farmers
who were looking for another way to make money, and to utilize their
farmland efficiently. Barley is great for that, so we have a good mix of
people who have farmed for very long time, who saw the opportunity to
be able to grow malting barley and be able to then open their own farm
malt house.”
Blair shares her excitement around the number of regions creating
new flavors and the variety of malt being produced by small malt
houses. Mutual interest has fostered rich collaboration between
universities like Michigan State, Virginia Tech, North Dakota State,
and Purdue. New York has gone so far as to create a Farm Brewer
license to incent and reward brewing with state-grown ingredients.
The Northeast and Southeast are showing great promise, and despite
Wendell Bank’s cautionary tale, the Midwest is also digging in asser-
tively and experiencing rapid growth, putting Michigan, Ohio, Illi-
nois & Kansas on Blair’s list of regions to watch.
Less than 10 years ago, if a brewery wanted to brew with local grain,
or if a farmer wanted to grow brewing barley, the brewery and the
farmer were left to figure out largely DIY solutions, which included
significant risk of time, energy, and money. Today, the Craft Malt-
sters Guild, formed in 2014, reveals a community of almost 60 small-
batch maltsters, across the US. These maltsters have come forward
and come together to connect and improve their local agronomies,
seeking answers to intriguing agricultural riddles, while developing
practices to reliably deliver quality malt with unique regional signa-
tures.
For the sake of clarity and education, the Craft Maltster’s Guild
closely mirrors the Brewers Association’s work in clarifying and
defining who they represent and the criteria behind the term, “craft
maltster.” The Guild’s definition is a maltster who produces between
five tons and 10,000 tons of malt per year, sources over 50 percent of
their grains from within a 500-mile radius, and are independently
owned.
In addition to the influx of maltsters, scholars, and farmers focusing
on supporting this shift, independent, mercenary scientists joined up
to help the cause. Prior to this recent explosion, all of the expensive,
and necessary testing equipment that could guide farmers and malt-
ster with timely, crucial data by testing barley before and after malt-