Why can't we make "British-Style" pale malt in AMERICA?

I enjoy British Pale Ales and one of my favorite "go-to" recipes is for a clone of Fuller's ESB. I have found that the only way to make this recipe to replicate the caramel flavor of a British ale is to use a real British pale malt such as Maris Otter. I once tried it with Rahr 2-row and it wasn't even close. Parts of the US have a very similar climate to Great Britain. Why can't a maltster in the United States make a pale malt which is identical, if not similar, to a British pale malt? I happily pay the extra $$$ for the British malt, but since is malt is heavy and relatively expensive to ship thousands of miles, it seems it would be more economical to buy a domestic malt with the British character. I would think that if it is possible a domestic maltster would do this, since it could be offered at a competitive price to foreign malt.

 

It's not just the malting, the varieties of barley grown in the two regions are different. The UK pale malts are also kilned slightly higher than domestics which helps give that toastier flavor.

Unless there is enough demand for such a product and somebody is willing to successfully plant and grow a UK type barley to supply a maltster willing to make the malt it is a real long shot at best. Most of the domestic beer styles, from megabrew to craft are based on domestic malts. That's a pretty strong supply and demand situation which would be difficult to change.

 

Check out great western malt's "northwest pale ale" malt. Not their standard two row. Similar to Maris otter in my experience.

http://greatwesternmalting.com/our-products/bulk-malts

 

I make ESB's on a regular basis. My LHBS stocks British malts of all kinds.


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I'd agree with the previous post about how the system is set up. Maris Otter itself is an owned variety grown under contract, its doesn't yield nearly as much as more modern varieties and has to be grown in a specific way at lower density with little to no nitrogen fertiliser. So it will be more expensive.

Not sure where the climates would be similar, i assume you mean Oregon, Washington. whenever I've travelled through there it seemed that summers were warmer, sunnier and perhaps drier than an equivalent english summer. I understand that lower sunlight levels helps in getting a lower protein level in the barley. I'm sure there must be somewhere thats similar but Uk (or East Anglia within UK) has quite an unusual climate, never gets too cold, has some but limited rain most months of the year and cloud cover with some humidity and close to sea which moderates the temp.

There was an interesting story locally here a while ago about farmers in SW california shipping alfalfa hay to China, turns out that was cheaper than transporting it to California central valley by truck, as can fill containers that are usually empty on their return trip to China after depositing manufactured goods in Los Angeles port. So sea transport can be cheap

 

Thank you for the tip on the Northwest pale ale malt. That is exactly what I'm looking for. I realize it won't be exactly like Maris Otter, because no two malts are identical. I will be interested to see how close this Brtitish-style malt compares to the real deal.

 

Gambrinus also makes an ESB malt that is quite good at approximating MO in most recipes.

 

I switched to this as my base malt for all of my beers. I like that it is a little darker and flavorful. It, also, takes well to both long, low temp mashes as well as standard temp mashes. :rockin:

 

Well, it looks like here in Minneapolis Great Western malt is not easily available, at least not at Northern Brewer and Midwest Supplies. I did find out that Rahr makes a Pale ale malt which is 3-4 L vs. the standard 2-row which I've used for years which is more like 1.8 L. I think I'll give the slightly toastier malt a try for an IPA sometime. It is interesting to me that so many recipes just say "2 row pale malt" and for years I never even considered trying anything other that Rahr 2-row for my porters, American IPAs, etc. since I've had good success with it and it is very cheap for me $35 per sack. I think I will start experimenting with some other pale malts and see if I like them more. Even listening to the Jamil show they never talk about using any particular type of pale malt, like using 3-4L vs 2L.

My original question about British vs. American is actually more academic than something I am concerned about with my own brewing. My time and a successful finished product are the most valuable part of brewing. I have nothing ideologically against British malt. I think I'll stick to Maris Otter for my attempts at replicating British beers - I just brewed a batch of ESB last weekend and can't wait to carb up a keg and have a pint.

 

I just spent a few weeks in Uk and whilst getting over jetlag found myself listening to early morning BBC radio broadcasts that are targeted to farmers, I think at 5.30 every morning (Farming today on Radio 4). one morning they had an in depth analysis of the Maris Otter harvest which was just coming in. In fact you can listen to the podcast of that show here
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04brjqs

They talked a lot about weather conditions and fertilising etc and peculiarities of the crop. So got an appreciation of the trouble that is gone to in producing it. You'll be glad to know its looking like a good harvest this year and the market is good mainly due to expansion in people like us buying the stuff from the US.

Looking at prices buying a bag of floor malted Warminster maris from the maltster is 32 pounds which at current exchange rate (1.66 dollar to pound) is $53

Warminster UK price is $53
http://www.warminster-malt.co.uk/are-you-a-home-brewer/

Northern Brewer price is $65
http://www.northernbrewer.com/shop/bulk-traditional-floor-malted-base-malts.html

So you end up paying $12 for shipping Atlantic, I'd bet a lot of that is shipping from Warminster to London docks or wherever its shipped from.

 

There was one beer they didn't clone on the first attempt because they used standard two row instead of pale ale malt. I forget which one it was though. Also I recall jamil mentioning he was using this gwm pale ale malt in one of the heretic beers in place of Maris otter.

 

The beer that was incorrect with 2-row but correct with "pale ale malt" was Deschutes Mirror pond. They talk about it in the episode: Re-brew Mirror pond and Fish Alt. Just found it serendipitously.

 

I was going to say try GNW malting NW Pale Ale malt, but I got beat to the punch! It does have a good british flavor; not quite as good as Maris, IMO. I just made a ESB recipe with it that tastes very 'right', using EKG and a hint of fuggles. It has plenty of malt flavor, but you may find that it ferments with a bit less malt flavor afterwards; just change up your mash a bit.

 

You might be able to get some in Chicago if you see somebody doing a group buy. I don't know how frequent group buys are in the cities. A 12 hour drive two ways might offset the cost of just buying a sack when it's available at northern brewer unless you plan a Chicago vacation around it.

Good luck!