American Malting and Grain Growing for Craft Beer

With more than 4,000 craft breweries in the United States, it’s hard not to talk about the origin of the beer in your glass. Now there’s a new development in the industry that has enthusiasts, especially homebrewers, talking about where the grains in that beer came from. That development is the micromalting movement, and it’s quickly sweeping the country.

Craft-sized operations are malting and roasting locally grown grains in small batches before they turn over their finished products to homebrewers, professional brewers, and distillers for mashing into wort. As they establish themselves in various agricultural pockets of the U.S., craft maltsters are further defining what it means to drink local.
 

Rooted In Homebrewing

When Jason Cody and his family launched Colorado Malting Company in Alamosa, Colorado in 2008, an enthusiastic response from homebrewers caught them by surprise. Homebrewers wanted to experiment with the variety of flavors that CMC’s malt would yield, and they wanted to support a local business.

“The homebrewing community usually centers around a craft brewery because they like to drink craft beer, visit with the brewers, share hops and yeast,” said Cody. In this case the homebrewers centered around a craft malting company.

“Homebrewers started to discover that we were around – a lot of them came across our website surfing the Internet -- so we picked the ball up quickly and took care of them,” Jason said. “I remember lots of experiences taking trips to Denver in a pickup truck full of grain to a homebrewer’s house.”

The demand for Colorado Malting’s base malts eventually meant Jason and his staff couldn’t deliver to homebrewers’ doorsteps anymore. Homebrewers couldn’t get enough of Colorado Two-Row Malt and Colorado Pilsner Malt, specialties such as Colorado Belgian Chocolate Malt and Colorado Malted Red Wheat – or malted gluten-free millet and buckwheat. In 2012, the company hired an official Homebrew Advocate, Jason’s uncle Tim Cody, whose exclusive job at the time was to answer inquiries from homebrewers. “At that point we were shipping to homebrewers directly,” said Tim. “I cleaned, packaged, and shipped every bag of malt that was sold.”

“One of Tim’s responsibilities is to go the extra mile for homebrewers,” Jason said. “He spends three to four hours every day fielding emails from brewers all over the country and the world. He takes care of every individual person with technical information and quotes on products.”