Klages ?

[Dland]

I recently found an old brew log of mine from the early '90s. A lot of the recipes have "klages" as base malt. I looked it up, seems it might be an older style of two row barley. Wondering what closest equivalent of it available today.

 

[VikeMan]

Malt made from Klages barley was very common in the late 70s/early 80s. If you have recipes from the 90s that call for Klages, it may just be because Klages had become a sort of nickname for any generic 2-row base malt (kind of like Kleenex for facial tissue).

If you look hard enough, you can probably find small scale maltsters using Klages today. Personally, I'd probably use something like Briess 2-Row Brewer's Malt for recipes that called for "Klages." Even if you found a boutique maltster malting Klages, there's no guarantee that it would be a great match for 1980s mass produced Klages malts. A modern mass produced 2-row base malt might be just as similar performance-wise.

 

[Dland]

I don't need to go back in time, the choices of malt, hops and yeast available were nothing like what is available now, not to mention equipment and techniques. We brewed some good beer back then, but the consistency was nothing like what I can achieve these days.

Seeing the word written in my own writing from back then and not remembering what it meant.....kind of makes one feel old. Mostly got supplies via mail order from a little outfit w a thin paper catalog; Northern Brewer. I believe they listed it as klages, whatever it was.

 

[BigEd]

Klages was the barley variety grown for the production of basic North American pale malt several decades ago. As with most agricultural products new varieties are developed over time and Klages was taken over by, I think, Harrington. Nowadays it might be something else.

 

[lurker18]

Klages was introduced in the early 70's and became the variety of choice by the maltsters, brewers, and producers. It would be very difficult to find now unless you had a hook up with a micro maltster that was using it, as there is none grown commercially anymore. It has been replaced by at least 3 of it's offspring since it's heyday.