As we enter the new contract year, Robin Appel of Warminster Maltings suggests all brewers treat malt with the same level of enquiry, respect & value, they extend to sourcing their hops. 

The year 2023 has been a standout year for both barley and malt. We are talking about exceptional quality (barley), and exceptional prices (malt)! I have not been alone in the barley and malting industry in predicting that 2024 was always going to be quite a different story, again on both counts. And it is!

We will begin with the barley. At the back end of 2022, winter barleys were established well, and came through the mild and wet winter with particularly flush canopies. Spring barleys followed with an early sowing campaign in February for about 60% of the crop, interrupted by rain which dragged out the remainder of the plantings. Then it went very dry, which is not what the crop wants. By early/middle June the weather remained dry, and turned exceptionally hot, ahead of the barleys reaching grain maturity, which will always impact grain size. And it did!

The winter barleys were harvested in good weather, and in good condition, but then the harvest turned into weeks of intermittent rainfall, with the result that a lot of Spring barley crops were harvested days after their ‘best before date’. 

Barley samples lost their ‘bloom’, and for some crops the germination capacity began to waver, as 100% dropped to 98%. 

However, one of the Maltster’s favourites, the Spring barley Laureate, enjoys the attribute of being a more dormant variety, and so has stood up to this challenge better than others. But, for all Maltsters the next 10 months is going to be a long vigil of continuously monitoring the germination status of barleys in store.

So much for the ‘not so good’ news, the better news is that, overall, barley prices have fallen away from those values that prevailed last year. To the extent this follows through to the price of malts will almost certainly vary from Maltster to Maltster, because the price of barley is only one item in a whole column of other major costs. If we begin with energy, this again might be a little cheaper for some. 

But then there are also wages, repairs and renewals, and professional services, which are all significantly, and in some cases hugely, more expensive! 

My own overall expenditure budget for 2024 has shrunk a little, but nothing like as much as I had hoped.

Against all this, the demand for malt is looking extremely robust. It is reported that, currently, the only surplus malt capacity in the world is in China, which is probably where it will stay. 

At home, the demand for distilling malt continues to escalate, and is now greater than 65% of total domestic production. 

If you then take out long standing export orders, and food demand, you might very well conclude that the U.K. brewing sector was being ‘squeezed’! Certainly, my advice to Brewers who are so inclined, this is no longer a market place with which “to play ducks and drakes”.

You see, there are now individuals within the distilling market who take a more enlightened view over the sourcing of malt, quite different from what the industry as a whole used to do. 

Clearly, when a lone, nearly one hundred year old, bottle of ‘single malt’ can command a price of £2.1 million pounds at auction (1926 MacAllan, Sotheby’s, 18/11/2023), beer and whisky are becoming two very different and diverging market places. 

Maltsters are being made aware of this shift every day, as distilling capacity in Scotland continues to grow at a burgeoning rate. 

Even south of the border, English Whisky is now gathering serious momentum, and now commands the establishment of The English Whisky Guild.

The “more enlightened view” that distillers are adopting, is a lot about the barley, and adding value. We are talking about individual varieties, and their flavour profile; the influence of provenance on flavour (terroir); and the sustainability of the agronomy down on the farm. That is all before we get to the differences of process, and addressing ‘food miles’. Conversely, I continue to experience small brewers who mistakenly regard malt as a commodity, and, what is more, a commodity in surplus. I cannot emphasise enough, malt is neither, and it may not be very long before this becomes brutally clear. 

I suggest it is now time for brewers to heed the distillers! As we enter the new contract year, may I suggest that all brewers treat malt with the same level of enquiry, respect and value, they extend to sourcing their hops. Above all, desist from opening a conversation with a Maltster by just asking the price. We Maltsters love our beer, and we really do want to go on contributing to the iconic British pint. But, please, do not take us for granted, because both the availability and price of malt is under pressure. 

As things currently stand, do not doubt that the demand for U.K. malt is set to outstrip the supply!