Why is no Maris Otter grown in the USA?

[Silver_Is_Money]

What I mean here of course is: Why don't any of the major maltsters grow the Maris Otter strain of 2-Row barley here in the USA?

 

[Broothru]

What I mean here of course is: Why don't any of the major maltsters grow the Maris Otter strain of 2-Row barley here in the USA?

Or similar floor malted barley, either M.O. or Bohemian Pils? I love me some Weyermann malts, but how 'bout some North American maltsters produce some Euro style malts and roasting processes?

 

[VikeMan]

I really don't know, but a few possibilities come to to mind.

- There's not enough demand. IIRC, the footprint for M.O. had been shrinking because of it.
- It's a fairly low yield crop
- Its disease resistance is pretty poor
- M.O. is a winter barley (fall sewn). Most American grown barley is Spring sewn. Just wild guessing with this last one.

 

[smata67]

Robin Appel, who co-owns the Marris Otter variety, doesn't want it grown elsewhere:

"Given Maris Otter’s past, you can’t blame Appel for keeping a close eye on its future. He says that you’ll never find it grown outside of the UK, not because it couldn’t be, but because he wants to retain full control. “The problem is that there would be some maverick producing it and undercutting the market,” he says. “If you trash malt price sufficiently, you’ll kill it stone dead. Farmers won’t grow it.”"

http://allaboutbeer.com/maris-otter-50th-anniversary/

 

[Wayne1]

Here are a couple of articles that explain why Maris Otter should only be grown in and around the Norfolk region in the UK:

From The Oxford Companion to Beer:
https://beerandbrewing.com/dictionary/eBxLiA50ux/

https://www.sprowtlabs.com/2017/02/08/maris-otter

 

[mashpaddled]

Or similar floor malted barley, either M.O. or Bohemian Pils? I love me some Weyermann malts, but how 'bout some North American maltsters produce some Euro style malts and roasting processes?

Some of the smaller maltsters are floor malting but a couple reasons why you don't see more of it:

1. There is a higher cost to build and operate a floor malting operation than kiln malting for a relatively small market which makes it cost prohibitive; and

2. The majority of barley grown and malted for brewing is still grown to specifications for industrial brewers (and to a lesser extent to make malted products for culinary purposes) who want consistent, high DP grain for lagers. Even if you lumped together all of grain purchased by craft brewers you would not even get close to the grain needs of the large industrial brewers.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

Or similar floor malted barley, either M.O. or Bohemian Pils? I love me some Weyermann malts, but how 'bout some North American maltsters produce some Euro style malts and roasting processes?

Well floor malting is a process, and Maris Otter is a variety of barley, they're completely independent things. But the short answer is that like so many things that happen in British beer, it involves too much work and too much craft for the US brewing industry to bother with. And even in the UK they're pretty rare.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

Even if you lumped together all of grain purchased by craft brewers you would not even get close to the grain needs of the large industrial brewers.

But even so, the grain purchased by US craft brewers is still many multiples of the volume of production of non-List malting varieties in the UK (lumping together things like Otter and Golden Promise with the real speciality stuff like Chevallier and Hana). In theory there could be a market there. One obvious problem is climate - you need that cool maritime climate. Norfolk is just shy of 53N, which would put it about 250 miles north of Vancouver if I've got my sums right. The US is a great place to grow hops, not such a great place to grow barley.

 

[Wayne1]

As alluded to in the previous posts, there are very few malthouses that will put forth the time and effort to floor malt.

The Weyermann Bohemian malts are made at :
Pivovar Ferdinand (Benešov, Czechia)
https://www.beervanablog.com/beervana/2020/2/24/five-breweries-every-serious

There are a few US Craft Maltsters that Floor Malt. Here are two I know of.

Admiral Maltings in Alameda, CA
https://admiralmaltings.com/malt/

Leopold Brothers in Denver, CO
https://www.leopoldbros.com/malt

You should also check into the Craft Maltsters Guild:
https://craftmalting.com/homebrewer-craft-malt-resources/

There are some great small malt houses that use locally grown malt to give some distinct flavors.

 

[Dgallo]

Or similar floor malted barley, either M.O. or Bohemian Pils? I love me some Weyermann malts, but how 'bout some North American maltsters produce some Euro style malts and roasting processes?

If your interested in floor malted grains, Hudson Valley malts in NY floor malts all their grains.
http://www.hudsonvalleymalt.net/

 

[day_trippr]

Similarly, and perhaps related, valleymalt.com in Hadley MA does some floor malting. I recently got a bag of their two row pale and the aroma is crazy good...

Cheers!

 

[grampamark]

I’m a grain farmer, on the northern plains, which is the principal barley growing region in the US. Barley is, truly, a specialty crop. The total production of barley, nationwide, is a fraction of the production of corn, soybeans, or wheat in any one of the states which grow those crops.

I’m planning to plant some malt barley this spring, for the first time in 7 or 8 years. The price of malt barley hasn’t really made it an attractive crop for us to grow, when compared to the other crops we produce, for years. Last fall, winter came early to this part of the world (we had a foot of snow in mid-September), so we weren’t able to plant winter wheat. In order to maintain our crop rotation (a cereal crop on land that lay fallow the previous year, followed by a pulse crop, usually yellow peas, followed by another cereal crop, then a year of fallow) we have to plant something besides spring wheat on the land which had winter wheat on it last year. To avoid potential disease problems we try to avoid following wheat with wheat.

We’ll be planting a variety called AC Metcalfe which is the most popular malt variety, other than the proprietary varieties grown under contract to InBev and MillerCoors. Metcalfe is a standard 2-row variety which is, far and away, the most popular malt variety in the US and Canada. There simply is no market for “boutique” barley varieties, and any which are grown in the US are produced in very small quantities expressly for the handful of specialty maltsters which exist.

The chart below shows the planted and harvested acres of malt barley in the US for the last 3 years. The ten states whch are listed separately account for virtually all the barley grown in the US. The bulk of that is grown under contract to the BMC brewers. Two million acres and change is a rounding error in the total production of major field crops in the US. There simply isn’t enough demand for any more.

 

[Wayne1]

Here is an interesting article discussing malting barley being planted in Canada. Apparently Metcalfe is in decline and newer varieties, that yield more, are getting more acreage planted.

https://www.producer.com/2020/01/end-of-an-era-ac-metcalfe-loses-its-grip/

Here in CO, Genie is rather popular for the Craft Malt houses.

 

[Ollie8000]

Similarly, and perhaps related, valleymalt.com in Hadley MA does some floor malting. I recently got a bag of their two row pale and the aroma is crazy good...

Cheers!

This is my most commonly used base malt and I love it. Unfortunately I don't have enough experience (or sophistication of taste) to say how it compares to others.

 

[brewbama]

I’m a grain farmer, on the northern plains, which is the principal barley growing region in the US. Barley is, truly, a specialty crop. The total production of barley, nationwide, is a fraction of the production of corn, soybeans, or wheat in any one of the states which grow those crops.

I’m planning to plant some malt barley this spring, for the first time in 7 or 8 years. The price of malt barley hasn’t really made it an attractive crop for us to grow, when compared to the other crops we produce, for years. Last fall, winter came early to this part of the world (we had a foot of snow in mid-September), so we weren’t able to plant winter wheat. In order to maintain our crop rotation (a cereal crop on land that lay fallow the previous year, followed by a pulse crop, usually yellow peas, followed by another cereal crop, then a year of fallow) we have to plant something besides spring wheat on the land which had winter wheat on it last year. To avoid potential disease problems we try to avoid following wheat with wheat.

We’ll be planting a variety called AC Metcalfe which is the most popular malt variety, other than the proprietary varieties grown under contract to InBev and MillerCoors. Metcalfe is a standard 2-row variety which is, far and away, the most popular malt variety in the US and Canada. There simply is no market for “boutique” barley varieties, and any which are grown in the US are produced in very small quantities expressly for the handful of specialty maltsters which exist.

The chart below shows the planted and harvested acres of malt barley in the US for the last 3 years. The ten states whch are listed separately account for virtually all the barley grown in the US. The bulk of that is grown under contract to the BMC brewers. Two million acres and change is a rounding error in the total production of major field crops in the US. There simply isn’t enough demand for any more.

View attachment 676808

Metcalfe — not Pinnacle or Copeland?

 

[grampamark]

In the variety survey below, note that the specific varieties listed are only the varieties grown under contract. The largest category in each state is “unknown”, because most of the barley produced is not grown under contract. In the unknown category, Metcalfe is the most widely available and tends to be the most widely grown for that reason, at least in this part of the world.

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

Harrington must have gone the way of Klages. I didn't see either on the above map.

 

[grampamark]

Harrington must have gone the way of Klages. I didn't see either on the above map.

Harrington is no longer a recommended variety. It was popular for years, and was touted as a dual purpose (malt or feed) variety. We grew it for a long time and never had any problem selling it for malt.

The reality is, as far as the commercial malt market is concerned, any pale, two row barley, which has a high percentage of plump kernels, protein <11%, and the husks intact, is acceptable for malting. The biggest problem most wheat growers have with producing malt barley is thinking that they have to thresh it as aggressively as wheat. This destroys the husks, making the barley unsuitable for malting.