​I am always asked when talking to brewers, distillers, or anyone in general who asks about our malthouse, “Why should one buy Craft Malt?” It is an answer I have been refining myself these last 6 years. I hate when businesses market “Buy Local” just because it is local. I have had a lot of “local” products that were just plain bad. That “local” word just isn’t enough for me. I have especially been thinking about this question these last few months as the world around us changes right in front of our eyes. We have had to adapt as a society and change the way we do business. I think during these changes is the perfect time to change the way you purchase ingredients. So I am going to try and do my best to be upfront, blunt, and honest on my opinion of craft malt as an industry and why I think it is so important to the craft brewing and craft distilling industries. There are a lot of great breweries and distilleries out there who have been long supporters of craft malt and I am forever thankful for their support. This is me just doing my best to explain the importance craft malt has in the craft beverage industries. In other words, this is my Maltifesto. 
 
Economics
Price seems to always be one of the biggest hurdles we have had to jump when working with new customers, so let’s get into it. $200,000. I want to start with this number. This year we will be purchasing over $200,000 worth of grain directly from Indiana family farms. We contract out acreage to local farmers every year. Some years the barley quality is better than others and we can buy all the grain from our own state. Some years it doesn’t meet our high quality standards which forces us to source barley from surrounding states, but this year we will be buying over $200,000 worth of grain directly from our Indiana farmers. 
 
Let’s break this down. Sugar Creek Malt Co. Primarily sells malt to Indiana and Illinois brewers/distillers. We produce about 1,000,000 lbs of malt in a year. 1,000,000 lbs of malt can produce about 16,000 barrels of beer. In 2019 craft beer Indiana and Illinois combined produced 688,000 barrels of beer, using over 42.5 million lbs of malt. Our small family run malthouse is supplying the malt for less than 2% of the overall needs in Indiana and Illinois. Think of the impact the brewing/distilling industry could have to struggling small family farms if instead of buying malt from foreign countries, they made a conscious effort to buy from their local malthouse. I don’t think this will ever happen, nor do I want it to happen, but lets just think about what kind of impact Illinois/Indiana breweries alone could make to local agriculture if they were to only buy malt from a craft maltster in their region. If all 688,000 barrels of beer made in Indiana and Illinois were brewed with locally grown and malted grains the brewing industry in these 2 states would be helping to purchase over $9,000,000 directly from small family farms who have been really struggling to stay afloat the last few years. Instead that money goes to farms in Europe, Canada, or at best North Dakota, Wyoming, and Montana. Why should an industry who markets so heavily on supporting local to sell their own product be spending their money in foreign countries or distant states when there are viable options right in their backyard. Remember this is just breweries and just in 2 states. Add distilleries and take that nation wide and think of the impact the craft beverage industry could have on our national agriculture.
 
Let’s talk about craft malt prices compared to “big malt.” Our malt pricing is one of the lowest that I know of when comparing to North American craft malt, but it is still more expensive than “big malt.” Why? Well number 1, we are a small scale craft malt house. Big malt can produce in 1 day what we can produce in 1 year. It would be like comparing craft beer pricing to “big beer” pricing. If someone came to you to buy beer and you told them the price and they came back with, “Well I can get a 30 case of “X Light” for the same price as your 6 pack, so your pricing is way too high,” How would you respond?  There is no difference when talking to craft maltsers. 
Number 2 we pay our farmers very well. We buy barley for $8/bushel. Current corn prices are $3.16/bushel. In Indiana, farmers can sell barley to the malthouse, sell the straw, and get a crop of soybeans from the field in the same year. It can be very profitable for the farmer if they meet malting specifications. The pricing out west and in Canada is much lower and not as sustainable for the farmer as they can’t get a second crop from the field. Just this spring some of the big malthouses announced they will not be taking 50% of the contracted barley this year. What does that do to the farmer? Do we need all $200,000 worth of barley this year? No, but I am sticking to my word and paying my farmers even if it means we are buying way too much barley for our current needs in this market. Another downside is much of the ground out west is irrigated which drains surrounding water sources. In the big barley producing states barley production has been falling drastically in the last decade even when malt needs from breweries have been rising. We want to help keep our farmers farming for the long haul. My family farm has seen too many of our neighbors who have been farming for generations have to get out of farming in the last few years, because it is simply not profitable anymore. Our malt pricing also reflects this higher cost of barley we pay for high quality locally grown barley. 
 
But while we are talking about it lets do some more math. Our malt is about $.20-$.30/lb more than what can be purchased from North American “big malt”. That price difference comes down to less than $.05/ 12 oz can or pint. A nickel!!  If a brewery is selling pints for $5.00 using “big malt” and wants to switch to their local craft malt, but has a problem with the price point, here is what I always suggest they do. Advertise and market to their customers that they are supporting local businesses and farmers by buying local ingredients, then raise their pints to $5.25 or $5.50. You have a story to tell about how your purchasing helps the local economy and you actually will make $.45 more per pint than what you were doing. If you are canning and in distribution I understand it is harder to get that story across and margins are much slimmer, but with a little marketing to explain how you are helping the local farmer/local economy and adding $.50/6pack you will again raise your profit margins while helping support your local economy and agriculture simultaneously. 
 
This is just the economic impact on agriculture. Think of all of the other local industries that would be positively affected from purchasing craft malt. Maltsters, ag supply, trucking, packaging, distribution, construction… the list is endless. The economic impact to your local state economy would be huge! Instead of sending that money to other states or other countries why not keep it local to your own region?
 
Diversity in Product
            Let’s put the economical impacts aside and talk about malt. For the last 200 years malt has pretty much been stagnant. Innovation in hop varieties, and yeast strains have exploded, but malt was pretty much the same until about 10 years ago. You had a small list of malts made from a small number of maltsters available to use to make a beer and that was it. As a brewer or distiller there were only maybe a dozen or at most two dozen malt houses you could purchase from in the world, which were all basically producing the same malts, just from different parts of the world and under different names. It amazes me how much brewers want to experiment with hops, yeast, fruit, barrels, ect. But when it comes to malt they just brew everything with the cheapest “2-row” they can buy, because “That is what they know.” This is the majority of the flavor of your beer, why not use the best malt you can get your hands on! Now that craft malt has entered the arena that has completely changed. Here at Sugar Creek Malt Co. have been producing malt for 5 years now and we have continuously been trying to innovate and change the perception of malt as a whole. We started out by dialing in our true to style European base malts. We then built a cold smoker and started offering the largest list of smoked malts in the world. Then we decided to start malting rare grains like heirloom corn, heirloom rice, buckwheat, sorghum, etc. The next year we built a roaster and began producing some of the most premium and freshest crystal malts and dark roasted malts on the market. The next year we built our Såinnhus and started producing historic malts like our Stjørdal malt, wind malt, and Diastatic Brown malt. We have been working diligently these last few years to revive a lost winter heirloom barley variety that hasn’t been malted for almost a century whose parents were Moravian Hanà landrace varieties. We started production from a small packet of seed and have grown our seedstock for 4 years. Next year we will be able to sell this to brewers to be made into some incredibly accurate and delicious historic lagers! This summer we started barrel aging malts and the amount of layers of aromas and flavors that come off these malts are insane. We don’t produce these malts because we think we will sell hundreds of thousands of lbs of it. We produce it because we are passionate about what we do and if a brewer or distiller is out there who has been looking for something new and unique we want to offer it to them. We don’t want to ever limit your creativity and artistry. We are just one malthouse out of well over 150 craft malthouses in North America. There are other craft malthouses in the country focusing on specialty roasting, gluten free grains, heirloom varieties of barley, floor malting, and much more. The diversity and innovation of craft malt is endless. This diversity will also push “big malt” to be more innovative and push their product portfolio as well. We have already seen this happen which I really happy about! I want to give brewers and distillers an endless amount of colors, aromas, and flavors to choose from just like you have with all of the other ingredients in brewing and distilling. Why buy from a dozen malthouses who carry basically the same products when you can buy from hundreds of malthouses all with their own unique touch on their malt. 
 
I also want to warn against buying from “pseudo” craft malthouses. Just like how “big beer” is buying craft beer brands and selling them as craft beer, that same thing is happening in the malting world. These corporations have millions of dollars behind them and are trying to undercut the pricing of true craft malt. They promote as being your local malthouse but often the malt is being malted elsewhere or even by another malthouse and being sold as their own. While I am all for diversity in the market of malt I just want you to know who and what you are buying before you buy anything. Meet your maltster, tour their facility, meet their farmers, see what they are producing. I would hate for these “pseudo” craft malthouses to undercut our fledgling craft malt industry and take out the small family run malthouses before we can really establish ourselves. The innovation and experimentation will end as soon as this happens. If that comes true brewers and distillers will again be stuck with having to buy basically the same style malts being produced by “big malt” at slightly higher pricing, so just be careful on this. Again I love more diversity in the market, and have no problem with what they are doing I just want for you as a buyer to understand who and what you are buying when you buy from a new malthouse. 
 
Relationships and Quality/Consistency
            The last thing I want to say about craft malt is the relationships you can have with your maltster. There is no “big malt” that can even come close when talking about this. When it comes to craft malt you can literally call the person who grew, malted, bagged, and delivered your grain. Come out and spend a day at the malthouse. Have dinner with them and their family, become lifelong friends. You can collaborate with them and dream up new malts that you want and can not find in the market. I can’t tell you the amount of times I have sat down for dinner with my customers, walked the barley fields, or dreamed of upcoming projects with them while sharing a pint. Have you ever met the person making your malt from any of the non-craft malthouses?
            Quality and consistency are definitely one of the biggest problems with upstart craft malthouses. I am the first to admit we have made mistakes in the last 5 years. Just think about it though. We have literally had to build an industry from the ground up to make malt here in Indiana. There hadn’t been malting barley grown in Indiana since before prohibition, so we had to do our own field trials with different barley varieties to figure out which would grow well and make suitable barley for malt. That took a couple of years. We then had to convince farmers to grow this barley and train them on how to make malting quality when they had never grown barley on their farm for generations. We had to custom design and build all of our equipment because there aren’t any viable small scale malt manufacturers out there that make affordable malt equipment. We then had to learn ourselves how to make malt through trial and error. It is not like brewing/distilling where there are now thousands of resources and recipes to look up and compare. Malting is a very guarded trade by “big malt” and there are only a couple of antiquated books out there that even vaguely cover the malting process. Every year we have to relearn how to malt our grain as we are working with a living grain that changes year to year. Depending on the year we have to adjust our malting practices so that our finished malt is the same as it was the year before and the year before that. We have to hire and train employees with no previous malting experience, because where would they get experience from?. Malt also isn’t as easy as saying it tastes good and has the right color. We have to hit correct efficiency, diastatic power, beta-glucan level, FAN level, friability, soluble protein, pH, the list goes on and on and takes a lot of practice and expertise to be able to hit all of these at the same time every time. I am super grateful that there was a lab started in New York a few years ago that we send all our grain and malt to for a full analysis, but man what I would give to have a $250,000 lab in house for instantaneous feedback on malt…. Someday. These last 5-10 years of craft malt have been the wild wild west and are very similar to the late 80’s-early 90’s of craft brewing. Little information, no equipment, and not many people you can go to for advice
Needless to say it has been an uphill battle for us ever since we put the idea together of starting a malthouse and I know it is the same for any start up craft malthouse, but we have grown from every mistake we have made and put in checks and balances to prevent that mistake from ever happening again. After over 5 years of malting I would put our malt quality and consistency up against any other malt made in the world. Our base malts get higher extract than most other malts, our crystal and roasted malts are some of the best I have seen on the market, and our other more unique grains are all top notch. Nobody is perfect and mistakes are made, but with craft maltsters you can call them directly and work with them to fix a problem and we will bend over backwards to help right a wrong. Of course there are craft maltsters out there making inferior malt just like there is in any industry, but let me tell you there are some amazingly talented craft maltsters who have been around for over 5 years who are making some of the best malt you can get your hands on. It is important to work with new malthouses that are starting in your state and help guide them to produce higher quality and more consistent products. If you have issues with something you get from a craft malthouse, tell them. Don’t just stop ordering from them. We are all learning and just like your first beers and whiskies we sometimes make mistakes when we are making something brand new. We can only fix those mistakes if you tell us and maybe give us a few more opportunities than you might give “big malt” who has had literally centuries, a full team of support, and millions and millions of dollars to dial in their system and processes. I know that is a lot to ask. Our first couple years we really lucked out and began working with some large breweries who needed highly efficient and consistent base malt. They really helped guide us in the right direction right off the bat and we are forever grateful for that. Work with your local craft maltster to help them make the best malt they possibly can and I promise in the long run you will be happy you did. 
 
Conclusion
I know not every beer and whiskey will ever be made with local craft malt. That is not what I am saying I want to happen. I love the malt that is produced in Europe. I understand that for some beers it is better to buy cheap North American malt because the malt flavor really doesn’t have a huge impact in that style of beer. What I do want is for every brewer and distiller to at least have a relationship with their local craft maltster and at least try their malt out in a few of your products here in there. If you end up liking them then order more and grow with them. If you don’t then tell them why you didn’t and what you think should change.  If every brewery and distillery had just 1 year round beer or whiskey that is made with malt from a small family run craft malthouse purchasing grain from a small family farm, just think of the economic impact that could have. What if we took that less than 2% of the market up to 20% or 30%. If more and more maltsters pop up and have enough revenue to really experiment and develop new flavors think of all the new flavors our beers and whiskey’s could have 10 years from now that today while you are reading this, you never would have even thought possible. Call your maltster, go visit them, have dinner with them. We are just like you. We are passionate about what we do and want to make our mark on beer and whiskey just like you. We aren’t in it just for the money, we need to make a living and money will help us build a better infrastructure to continually improve our malts. Our main goal is to change the way malt is viewed in beer and whiskey. Come dream with us.  

To review the last blog about farming malting grains there are many obstacles we, Sugar Creek Malt Company, are trying to overcome in order to have local malt. Basically we have to breed varieties specifically for our local climate. These varieties will offer farmers a good yield in the field by lowering disease issues. If we can overcome these diseases then farmers will be more willing to switch some of their acreage to barley; In recent weeks, I have been corresponding with a plant breeder, from Ohio State University, who is currently working on this initiative. He has been running a barley-breeding program to develop varieties that are specific to our climate in the Midwest. We are excited to have some new varieties in the next few years!

“Okay, you get some varieties that grow well and you grow malting grains. Then after you harvest you just sell it to the brewers/distillers? Well that can’t be too hard…right?”

             Unfortunately, it is not that simple. In order to make barley into malt, there are long complex biological and chemical processes that must occur. You can’t take barley from the field and make beer out of it. Barley coming out of the field is still in its storage form. It is mainly made of complex starches. As most of you know yeast needs simple sugars in order to convert those sugars into alcohol, which is what we all want in a beer, right? Yeast cannot convert starch into alcohol so my job as a maltster is to coax the barley into thinking it is time for it to start growing. This “coaxing” is really all that malting is. Maltsters trick the barley into thinking it is the correct time of the year for it to start growing.

If barley were left to grow wild the process it would have to go through is as follows:

·      Geek Version: In late summer to early Fall, the seed falls off the stalk. If it immediately starts to grow after hitting the ground, it would grow too much before winter and not survive the cold climate. This also means that it comes off the stalk in its storage form known as starch. Such starch is very hardy and will not degrade nearly as quickly as sugar will, so it would sit in a field until the time was right for it to start growing. Then, when the time is right, many complex biological and chemical changes start to occur. (The main reason for these changes is to convert the starches into a readily available form for the growing plant… Sugar!) Enzymes in the seed will activate, start degrading the cell walls, and cut the long chemical chains of starch into the short chains of the simple sugar maltose. The growing plant can use this maltose until its stalk has broken through the surface of the ground. Once the stalk has done this, it starts to produce its own sugar through photosynthesis.

·      Layman’s Version: So all of the starch in the seed is basically a reserve of energy for the plant to grow long enough until it can produce its own energy.

So how does this have anything to do with malt and beer???

              It has everything to do with malt and beer! We mimic this natural process in the malthouse so we can activate those enzymes that will convert the starch into sweet, tasty maltose sugar that yeast loves to eat. This yeast will eat those sugars and convert them into alcohol and CO2… BEER!

We mimic this natural occurrence in a three-step process:

              Step 1: For all the Beeks (i.e., a clever name my wife gives beer geeks) like me out there, after the     grain has been harvested, cleaned, and sized we put it in large steeping tanks. In these tanks the grain will be covered with water. This will allow the grain to get up to a moisture-content of around 45%. This is recreating a natural soaking from rain. There is aeration to allow oxygen to get to the grain so it doesn’t suffocate and we also drain the water periodically to allow the grain to breath. The steeping process takes around 2 days for the grain to reach its 45% moisture. At the end of this a physical change in the grain can be seen. There will be a little white point at the end of the grain; in the malting world, this small rootlet is referred to as “chitting.” You will probably hear many references to chit in the future… pun intended. Nevertheless, once the moisture level has been reached we move on to the next step.

             Step 2: The wet grain is then moved to the germination floor. During this process the grain is spread out on a floor. The floor can be perforated or just concrete. Our system is a mixture of both. This allows for the slow germination that makes floor-malted malt so flavorful, but it also allows a little more air movement to prevent any mold issues. We can control the germination to mimic both types of germination. Anyway, during germination the grain must be kept at a cool temperature, around 60 degrees Fahrenheit. The grain is then allowed to grow for 3-5 days. During this time the enzymes are being activated and they are starting to degrade the cell walls— gaining access to the starch inside. This is really where most of the biological and chemical changes occur. The maltster does not want the grain to grow too much. If this happens then the plant will actually start to use the sugar and that takes away from the amount of sugar available to the brewer. So when the maltster recognizes that the grain has “fully modified,” meaning the enzymes have been activated and the cell walls have been degraded and not “over modified,” meaning that the enzymes actually start converting the starch into sugars and this sugar is used up by the growing plant. It is then time to move to the final stage of malting: drying and kilning.

              Step 3: After the grain has fully modified it must quickly be dried so that it does not continue to grow and over-modify. This is done in a specially designed kiln, which will dry the grain down with low temperature so as to not destroy the enzymes. After it has been dried, the temperature will be turned up to create the color and malty flavors we all love in our beer. The temperature and duration will change with this stage depending on what type of malt you are making. And this is where the art of malting comes in. You can make base malt, amber malt, brown malt, caramel malt, chocolate malt, black malt, smoked malt, make your own style malt, bubba-gump malt, shrimp malt, shrimp and potat…oh, sorry! You get the picture!

              A maltster can really craft a flavor through the control of his/her kiln. After the kilning is done the malt must be debearded, which knocks off the rootlets and polishes the grain. Then it is cleaned again to remove the rootlets and any other light material. Next comes bagging the malt that is ready to make some tasty beer!!!

               This three-step process takes about a week before it can be shipped to brewers, which leads us to our last hurdle we have had to jump while starting a malthouse… the EQUIPMENT!! I have listed off a lot of equipment that is needed for the malting process, but unfortunately there has been no sexy genie coming out of any lamp around here supplying this stuff!

 

So where are we getting all of this equipment? Is there a company that makes all of this malting equipment?

              Again no, nothing can be simple for craft maltsters. We are in a similar position as craft brewers were in the late 80’s and early 90’s. Back then there were only about 100 breweries in the nation. Most of these were very large breweries with very sizeable equipment that would not work in a small craft brewery. The craft brewers had to find a way to get brewing equipment for smaller batches. Luckily they were and still are able to get much of their equipment from Europe, mainly Germany. Craft maltsters share similar struggles, but seem even worse off.

                Currently 80% of all malt produced in the world comes from only 10 companies; these are massive corporations with multiple malthouses in each company. The other 20% are other large companies predominately in Europe; some of these could be considered craft malthouses. In North America though, maybe .01% of the beer made is from a North American Craft Maltser and that guess is running on the high side. Five years ago there was one craft malthouse in North America. Last year there were only a dozen extremely small craft malthouses. These are producing maybe 2-3 tons a week. However, there should be around 40 craft malthouses producing malt by this time next year in North America, at least. We are small but growing, while struggling to find equipment. There aren’t any companies that make economical small scale malting equipment. Trust us! We have looked! There are some very small systems in Germany and China, but to get them made and shipped here is not feasible. The only way for a craft maltster to get equipment is to either retrofit equipment from other industries or design and custom build equipment. We are doing both.

               For example, our steep tank is a 1,000-gallon stainless steel conical bottom tank that was originally used in a corn syrup refinery. Our kiln on the other hand is a one of a kind kiln. The dryer is specially designed for us and the kiln box is also specially designed and built for us. It has not been easy to get what equipment we need to make quality craft malt.

               So in all it has been extremely difficult to start this business. There have been many mountains we have had to climb, many hurdles we have had to jump, but we have done all of them. I am sure there will be many more, but we are excited for the new challenges as they come our way!

              As for now, Sugar Creek Malt Company is close to producing our first batch of malt! Only a couple of months away! We hope you are as excited as we are!

 

In this year alone our state is expected to double its amount of breweries. For this reason, among others, I am starting a craft malthouse in Indiana using locally grown small grains. Great idea, right? I think so. With the craft beer industry on the rise, it seems that Hoosiers simply can’t get enough. Likewise, as a growing trend, many customers who enjoy the craft beers want to know where the food and beverage ingredients come from and how they are handled.  This is where Sugar Creek Malt Co. comes in.

Craft brewers and home brewers love to experiment and play with new kinds of malts, and most of them are willing to pay more for a malt that has been grown locally, which allows them to not only know the maltster, but also the farmer and what field their malt comes from. So why are there not dozens of craft maltsters in the state?!?!?!?!

I will give you three reasons spread out over 2 blogs. Sorry if they are lengthy. There are just many things that need to be discussed to understand the issues an Indiana maltster faces.

Mountain 1: What do you need to make the majority of malt used in breweries?

                        Answer= Barley

               Easy answer, right? Grow some barley. Well Sugar Creek Malt has figured out that is easier said than done. My family has been farming in Indiana for generations. We know the ins and outs of grains that are grown in our state. The problem is that barley has not been grown in our state for many decades. In Indiana there are 3 grains— really 2 grains. Corn and soybeans are the main two crops, beating out wheat by a wide margin. If you were to ask a farmer in Indiana if he would grow barley, let alone malt-quality barley, that farmer will look at you like you are crazy.

            So why is there no barley grown in Indiana now? I had to go all the way to Fargo, North Dakota to get to the bottom of this question. I have spent this week at North Dakota State University attending a barley field course. There I was able to learn everything from the history of the barley market to current barley growing practices.

Historically, barley was the second plant to be domesticated. Ever. This happened at the beginning of civilization around 10,000 BC in present day Iraq. Side note, there are historians that believe that agriculture, which then led to the written language, civilization, medicine, technology, pretty much everything we have today, was actually because ancient people wanted more barley to make more beer! Think about that. No barley = No beer = No Agriculture = No Civilization = You and me out hunting and gathering still today. Crazy. Anyway, barley is found in the wild and was first domesticated in a fairly dry area. Our current varieties still do not like wet humid climates. Therefore Indiana is not the best climate to raise barley in. However, this does not mean it can’t be done.

There are two types of barley: Feed barley, grown to feed livestock, and malting barley, grown to make into malt and eventually beer. The barley that used to be grown in Indiana was primarily, if not completely feed grade barley. Malt grade barley must be lower in protein, lower in beta glucagon, managed in the field extremely carefully, and harvested and stored extremely carefully. Our present day corn and soybeans really are quite easy to grow. Some North Dakota barley growers may say they are “idiot proof.” So with higher prices for corn and soybeans and government subsidies for corn and soybeans, the few farmers in Indiana that grew feed barley and wheat changed to only corn and soybeans. Also 80% of all barley grown currently is malt barley. Because corn and soybeans are so available, nobody needs barley to feed to animals. Therefore all of the barley grown in our nation, which is not much in the grand scheme of things, is grown in North Dakota, Montana, and Idaho; Ironically, it's primarily malting barley. Because of this all of the research that has gone in to variety selection for barley has made barley grow really well in North Dakota, Montana, and Idaho…, but not so great in Indiana. Fantastic. 

So here are our problems and how we are overcoming them

1.                    Indiana is not the easiest climate to grow barley in. It’s not impossible, but it’s definitely not as easy as corn and soybeans.

 We have to scout our fields at least a year in advance to understand the soil type and pick our best fields that barley will grow in. We also have to spend more time in our barley fields observing how the crop is growing and managing any problems that may occur. This can be very time consuming, much more than that with corn/soybeans.

2.                    Farmers in Indiana have completely lost all of the knowledge of how to grow barley.

We have to act as educators and teach the common practices that must be followed in order to grow a high quality malting barley in Indiana. We must spend the time to learn these practices ourselves and then spend even more time educating the farmers as well.

3.                    The current barley varieties have been bred for the northern states, none for Indiana.

Sugar Creek Malt Co. is conducting a variety field trial next spring. This will allow us to test 15-30 heritage varieties, current varieties, and even experimental varieties not yet released to farmers. This will allow us to choose the best varieties for our climate. This will take a large amount of time and planning.

So although there are many issues that we are trying to overcome just in the growing process of malting barley Sugar Creek Malt Co. is extremely excited to tackle these hurdles and bring malting barley to Indiana and Indiana brewers.

Check back in for the next mountain we are climbing.