Ireks Malt - Any good?

I saw a banner ad on here for maltbuythebag.com, and they seem to have pretty good prices - cheaper than my LHBS's for big sacks of base malts, even when shipping is taken into account. The only question is the quality of the grain.

I'm thinking seriously about purchasing 55lb of the Ireks Munich, but I can't find out any information about them *at all*. It appears they're based in Germany, which is probably a good sign. Maybe they just don't sell much over here?

Maybe they are re-entering the market. Many years ago I used to buy Irek's malt extract and it was very good. It's probably a safe bet that any malt produced in Germany is decent stuff.

That's what I was thinking - Germans probably wouldn't put up with crappy malt. I notice that site has malts that I haven't heard of at other homebrew supply sites, so maybe they are getting surplus from a commercial distributor or something?

I did more research and this is evidently the same as Meussdorfer Munich, distributed by Cargill. It seems pretty legit.

Knock . Knock ....I'm waking the dead thread . My Aunt who owns a HBS is sending me some Ireks Pilsner grain. Never made a pilsner before but she wants some feedback on this stuff . Anyone else know about this company?

One of the online homebrew shops here in Japan carries it. They charge more for it than another place charges for Weyermann, so I opt for the Weyermann if possible. I have used their Aroma malt and I like it.

I think I read a while back that IREKS was owned by a Russian oligarch. Can't remember where I read that, though, so I could be wrong.

It can be found around in Europe, and I've only ever used their Pilsner malt and it was alright. This was back a few years, when I began my journey into homebrewing, but the malt iself produced beer, that tasted fine. I wouldn't expect it to be horrible or unusable in any way. Differences in taste can of course exist - and although I have my own favourites, most times I am more concerned about the exact Lovibond range, so it doesn't result in a darker beer than intended. ( valid for very light coloured beers, like Farmhouse Ales / Saisons, Pilsners, Hefeweizens, etc. )

Used Ireks Pils and Munich in a Schwarzbier this past weekend for the first time. Usually a Weyermann Barke malt user...the Ireks malts smelled amazing when milling them. I may be using them a lot more in the future once I use up my sacks of Barke Pils/Munich. Luckily, here in Massachusetts, we have a local maltster that gets Ireks and for some reason repackages it under their own name. Not sure if they get the raw grain from Ireks and then malt it here, or what...but it's available at my LHBS.

jdauria said:

Used Ireks Pils and Munich in a Schwarzbier this past weekend for the first time. Usually a Weyermann Barke malt user...the Ireks malts smelled amazing when milling them. I may be using them a lot more in the future once I use up my sacks of Barke Pils/Munich. Luckily, here in Massachusetts, we have a local maltster that gets Ireks and for some reason repackages it under their own name. Not sure if they get the raw grain from Ireks and then malt it here, or what...but it's available at my LHBS.

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My homebrew club just did a group buy from Stone Path Malt here in Massachusetts. I talked to one of the owners when we picked it up. They have a great setup with a big German built malt house and a tap room. They malt local grains but they also import Ireks malt and package it—they don’t import German barley and malt it.

I bought sacks of Ireks pilsner, Vienna, and Munich. They smell and taste super fresh. Ireks is in Kulmbach in Franconia and I brew a lot of Franconian styles (especially Kellerbier and Franconian Dunkel) so I can’t wait to try it out.

Witherby said:

My homebrew club just did a group buy from Stone Path Malt here in Massachusetts. I talked to one of the owners when we picked it up. They have a great setup with a big German built malt house and a tap room. They malt local grains but they also import Ireks malt and package it—they don’t import German barley and malt it.

I bought sacks of Ireks pilsner, Vienna, and Munich. They smell and taste super fresh. Ireks is in Kulmbach in Franconia and I brew a lot of Franconian styles (especially Kellerbier and Franconian Dunkel) so I can’t wait to try it out.

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Nice! My club on the South Shore, the Mash Holes had a trip to Stone Path planned for a club outing, but then Covid hit. Hopefully we can reschedule it for this spring or summer, check out their malts, their tap room, etc.

jdauria said:

Nice! My club on the South Shore, the Mash Holes had a trip to Stone Path planned for a club outing, but then Covid hit. Hopefully we can reschedule it for this spring or summer, check out their malts, their tap room, etc.

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Their warehouse is super spacious. I only went in and grabbed my sacks and left. I look forward to going back. We (WIZARDS) bought 40 bags between us. We do club beer swaps every month or two and then drink together on Zoom. Can't wait to try the beers with all the different malts we got.