EPISODE S.5, E.20

[GAME OF TONES: ROASTED MALT EDITION]

Toby (00:09):
Hello, everybody.

Cheyenne (00:10):
Hello, hello.

Abi (00:12):
Hello.

Toby (00:14):
Cheyenne and Abi in the house.

Cheyenne (00:16):
In the house ready to talk about roasted malts.

Toby (00:19):
Absolutely. So I’m excited. Well, first couple things we’ve got on the docket before we dive in, just want to make a little mention in light of Hurricane Helene and Hurricane Milton’s recent impacts on the Southeastern US. We want to remind you that we’re here to support you and your businesses, our hearts definitely go out to everybody affected in the area. So whether you’re facing challenges, have questions or need to make adjustments to your ingredient needs, please reach out to your sales rep for support. With that, we want to share some initiatives that we are very, very proud to support. Cheyenne, you want to tell us about them?

Cheyenne (00:55):
Yeah, definitely. We’ve got some really great initiatives in the Western North Carolina region, the first of which is the higher calling collaboration. We’re honored to support the higher calling beer collaboration. It is a nationwide project led by a Asheville based brewery, Dissolver. We’re proudly donating the essential ingredients for this collaborative Hazy IPA recipe. Proceeds from those beers will be donated to the North Carolina Craft Brewers Fund, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization managed by the North Carolina Brewers Guild. Go ahead and contact your CMG sales rep if you want to participate in that. We’re very excited about that. Also, breweries everywhere can support through the pouring for our neighbors initiative, so if you don’t have the time or the space to brew a whole new beer to raise funds, that’s okay. You can dedicate one of your existing beers on tap and make a donation per pint sold to the North Carolina Disaster Relief Fund, which supports non-profits providing essential supplies like food, water, and emergency relief to storm victims or similar organizations. More information on that. You can find that at Drinkncbeer.org, and we also have some resources out of Florida.

Abi (02:06):
Yeah, those are, the Florida Brewers Guild has put together a list of release resources and organizations that you can donate to as well. For more information, you can check that out at floridabrewers.org/hurricanerelief. A couple other things that are going on. GABF happened two weekends ago. It feels like it was just yesterday, but congrats to those winners. We’ve got a couple of really great gold winners here in Minnesota I saw, very excited about that. We will be reaching out to you about Filson vests through November 8th, so congratulations to everybody on that. [inaudible 00:02:44]

Toby (02:43):
Yeah. Sorry to cut you off there, but that’s a good program we’ve been doing for a while and for those that won gold using our products, you can get you a kick-ass vest. They’re really nice.

Abi (02:55):
Oh yes. They’re so nice, so nice. I’m jealous. I want one.

Cheyenne (03:00):
Same.

Abi (03:01):
Yeah, and then the Canadian Beer Cup Awards were last weekend as well, and congrats to all those winners as well.

Cheyenne (03:08):
Lots of competitions. We’ve got some good competitions going on right now. Something else that we have coming up on the horizon here, the Craft Beer Professionals, they’re doing a 60-minute presentation tomorrow, October 23rd at 4:00 PM Eastern Time. We’ve got a really cool group of presenters. Lots of people that we like around here. Presenters on this are Abi.

Toby (03:29):
Hey.

Abi (03:29):
Hey.

Toby (03:30):
Hi five. There we go.

Cheyenne (03:34):
She’ll be joined by Patrick Sylvester, Heather Jared, Tim Roberts, shout out. He is a guest on this episode and Cindy Starkman. I think we’ve got half of our podcast team.

Toby (03:44):
Yeah, I think all of them have been on several times. That’s awesome.

Cheyenne (03:49):
All the lovely podcast people are given that presentation, so check that out. They’re going to be talking about using brewing ingredients innovatively, how to make the most out of your specialty grain, so if you listen to this episode about roasted grains, roasted malts and you want to learn more, you can check that out, stream it live or watch it back later on the Craft Beer Professionals YouTube, and then that is what we have for updates. Abi, you’re going to talk to us about roasted malts.

Abi (04:14):
Yeah, definitely. So I don’t know if you all know this, but we have a lot of roasted malts in our portfolio.

Cheyenne (04:20):
A lot. A lot.

Toby (04:20):
It’s going to be a toasty discussion.

Cheyenne (04:22):
No.

Toby (04:27):
No? It might. Well, watch out, I might get a little dark. Oh, gosh.

Cheyenne (04:29):
Oh, Toby.

Toby (04:31):
Sorry. Better throw that in there.

Abi (04:34):
I don’t even know how to follow that.

Toby (04:36):
I just shut down the entire episode right there, every time. I’m so sorry, Abi.

Cheyenne (04:44):
Well, there’s that.

Abi (04:44):
Yeah, it’s okay. It’s all right.

Toby (04:44):
Carry on.

Abi (04:45):
I’ll forgive you. I’ll forgive you. We actually have just such a lengthy portfolio of roasted malts. We can get any kind of roasted malt for you for any kind of beer that you’re making. We got you covered. My favorite part is that we have a lot of vendors that are really well known for the roasted malts, so that’s pretty cool, one of which is Great Western. We have a roasting plant in our Vancouver plants. We make a lot of really good crystals. I think we’ve got a total of seven products ranging from 15 to 150. You’re going to add these to your grain build for a range of colors and flavors. We also have a really cool innovative product, which is the caramel steam. This is created using steam and it has a softer flavor, a little less astringency.

(05:30)
We also have [inaudible 00:05:32] in our portfolio. They’re known for their roasting as well. They have some crystal malts, a light and medium for an SRM of around 30 to 60. They also have some Caras that are great from 15 to 30 SRM. They have some dark roasted malts, like a black chocolate and a brown. Another cool one that they have is their roasted barley. This is unmalted, so it lends a super dark 500 SRM range with a really, really nice dry coffee flavor. We also added Castle into our portfolio this year, which is really exciting. We continue to add more and more throughout the year, and some of them that we have right now are cara malts. Then the cara blond and the cara rubi. We also have their cara terra, which is perfect for those dark beers around the 70 to 80 SRM range. I can also tease that we’re going to be getting a couple of new ones in the next couple of months. That’s going to be a chocolate and then a really fun roasted coffee malts. Keep an eye out for those.

Toby (06:41):
Nice.

Cheyenne (06:41):
Coffee malt, huh.

Abi (06:41):
Yeah. I’m only halfway through this list, guys. You’ve gotten really, really-

Cheyenne (06:46):
I’m getting too excited already.

Abi (06:46):
Yeah, we’ve got some really, really good ones. Thomas Fawcett’s another one, they’re really well known for their roasted malts. They’ve got a ton of them. We have a ton in our portfolio. We have really nice roasted barley that’s perfect for a dry Irish stout. They have a roasted wheat, which is cool for those dark pot fermented beers like alt beers and Vox. Man, they have a ton of roasted malts. They have brown, black, amber, chocolate, a pale chocolate. They even have a ton of awesome crystals and caras. They even have a crystal wheat, which is really neat. Briess is one of my favorite roasted malts, which their midnight wheat is one of my favorite malts of all time. I think it’s so cool.

Cheyenne (07:29):
Oh, I love that one.

Abi (07:30):
Yeah, me too. It’s a gorgeous, dark roasted malt that lends a really, really clean roasted flavor without the astringency. We carry their crystal red, which is kind of a newer one. It lends that really pretty red color with that bready roasted flavor. They’ve got some caramel malts. I think we carry 15 or so of their caramel, ranging from mild to Vienna to like 20 to 120. They’ve got roasted malts like chocolates and blacks. They’ve got their black barley, which is great for porters and stouts. Definitely go check out that portfolio, there’s a lot to choose from. We also have best malts, which a little plug here is to go back and listen to season two, episode 24, the Dark Side of Malt. This is where we get to talk to Axel a little bit from BEST about their dark malts offered by them.

(08:21)
Just a quick overview here as well, BEST has their Red X and their Special X, which are some cool caros that have some wonderful flavor characteristics and color additions. They also have a Black and an Extra Black as well as a Chocolate. Those are the dark roasted malts. They have a really good Caramel Hell, which is super nice for the lighter SRMs and with a really subtle sweet caramel flavor. We’ve got a couple of regionals too. We’ve got Epiphany. We have a couple fun ones from them if you’re in the Southeast. And then Redshed, have chocolate malt from them if you’re in Western Canada. So I will exhale after that long list.

Toby (08:58):
A great list.

Cheyenne (09:00):
We’ve got a lot to choose from, a lot of really good options. And you can also, shout out to Abi and the marketing team for our newly updated digital catalog. Please go check that out. They put a ton of work into that. If you want to read any more about any of these malts, huge list that Abi just listed.

Toby (09:21):
Yeah, absolutely. You know what? I’m glad we have you because hell, I can’t remember half of those we carry, so it’s great stuff.

Cheyenne (09:29):
[inaudible 00:09:30] that whole list.

Abi (09:32):
Happy to be here. Happy to be here.

Toby (09:34):
All right. Well, without further ado, we got a great episode, so let’s just dive right in. All right. Today’s a special day because we have a dude that’s been in the industry for a long, long time, and for lack of a better term, he gets around, especially on the podcast and in various venues, interviews, et cetera. So we’re lucky to have him on because he’s no stranger. It’s Larry Horwitz of Crooked Hammock. How are you, Larry?

Larry (10:06):
That’s great. Isn’t there supposed to be a laugh track or a laugh track?

Cheyenne (10:10):
An audience.

Toby (10:12):
We’ll put that in later. Yeah.

Larry (10:14):
I’m doing great. How are you guys?

Toby (10:17):
Man, we’re kicking ass today. It’s more special that we get to talk to you, so it’s all good.

Larry (10:25):
You’re kind to say that, and I’m not just a customer, I’m also a client or I don’t know. There’s a bad joke in there somewhere.

Toby (10:31):
Yeah, it’s from a couple of commercials I’ve heard. Yeah.

Larry (10:35):
Yeah. We were comparing haircuts and for those of you who can’t see me on the radio, I have absolutely no hair, and that’s a joke from a really terrible toupee company in the 80s.

Toby (10:47):
Oh yeah. Well, there’s three other four of us on this call that are in the same position, Larry. That yeah, we also got Tim Roberts on. Tim was the person that twisted your arm, but come on, Tim, what’s going on?

Tim (11:01):
Hey, Toby. Hey, Larry. Cheyenne. How are you guys doing?

Cheyenne (11:05):
Good, good to have you.

Toby (11:07):
Tim’s no stranger as well. He jumped on with us on the first season when we did. We talked a little bit about seltzers.

Larry (11:15):
Look at the memory on this guy.

Tim (11:16):
Yep.

Toby (11:17):
I don’t know. I’m also looking at a sheet that I’m referencing, so.

Larry (11:22):
Oh, yeah.

Cheyenne (11:24):
[inaudible 00:11:24] for us, so we sound like we know what we’re talking about.

Larry (11:27):
I love it. I love an IT that can keep me on the straight and narrow, right?

Toby (11:33):
Tim, I don’t remember what I did an hour ago or what I had for lunch, so anyways.

Larry (11:38):
The older I get, the more I can remember what happened 30 years ago compared to what happened last week.

Toby (11:42):
Isn’t that odd how that happens? Anyways, Larry, tell us a little bit about yourself.

Larry (11:48):
Sure, so my current role is the Director of Brewing and Beverage for Crooked Hammock Brewery Restaurant Group. So we have three brew pubs, about to be five brew pubs in three different states. We’re also a member of a group called Lavita Hospitality that has a series of other concepts scattered across the mid-Atlantic and the Southeast. So we are primarily a pub breweries and restaurants. We distribute a tiny bit of beer in a couple of markets. I think we all understand how that works, right? And we will make this year roughly 4,000 US barrels of beer, about 95% of which will be sold over a bar that we own. Our facilities vary in size from about five US barrels into one large facility in the Southeast that has a 30 US barrel beer house in it, which probably doesn’t need to be a 30 barrel brew house, but you know how that goes.

(12:40)
We brew beer with the equipment we have, not with the equipment we wish we had. We’re a pretty successful group. We run anywhere between 20 and 22% gross revenue out of beer, which makes me as the beer guy super happy. And it also means we’ve got lots of resources and most of our locations are also near a beach, so that makes me exceedingly happy. That being said, today I’m coming to you recorded live from the Middletown Delaware location, which is near a beach. If you live in Middletown and not near beach, if you live anywhere else in the country.

Toby (13:14):
We got to throw that, you got to throw those little beach tosses out at us where we’re hold up in some remote location, nowhere near a beach. So congratulations, Larry.

Larry (13:23):
Exactly. The water’s still warm, by the way. We were walking on the beach last night, so I’ve been in this industry for about 30 years. I’ve owned my own brewery. I’ve worked for a handful of brewery restaurants, including another brewery restaurant group here in the middle of the Atlantic called The Iron Hill. Lovely people doing great work. I’ve worked for major US breweries and a couple of regional specialty breweries, and I think I was trying to figure this out the other day. I started my commercial professional career in 1992, so that officially means I have been in this industry longer than 30 years, which is nuts because it does not feel that way, but I’m stoked to be here and talk about the arc of malt and specifically roasted malt across that time period. And I’m ready to dig in whenever you guys are. Oh, we’re going to talk about Tim first though, I think. Yep? [inaudible 00:14:13]

Toby (14:13):
Yes. But before we go to Tim here, do you also have an alias name as the Light Lager Whisperer?

Larry (14:24):
Some wonderful PR person wrote that. My thing is this, we’re brewery restaurants and what’s the number one selling beer style in North America? I mean, it’s bringing in light lager, right?

Toby (14:37):
The milk stout. Oh, I’m sorry.

Larry (14:38):
Yeah, exactly, exactly. Well, I mean, if you ask some of the rating websites, that might be the answer, but a big part of my career has been just convincing people to make the beer that our customers want to drink. And I am passionate personally about lager beer in general, light lager just because, I mean, it’s about a third of our production volume, and I tell my teams all the time, I’m like, “Listen, don’t marginalize the importance of the quality of that product. I mean, people come to us to have a good time and give us money for the beer we make. Let’s make it beautiful.” And the PR team was like, “You’re like a whisperer for that.” I’m like, “No, I’m not.” I’d rather call myself a journey person on that deal. As a journeyman, I’ve been in this business a long time, and lager beer is one of those things that I think is important for any brewer because it’s really hard to hide flaws, especially in premium like domestic, and it requires a special touch.

(15:28)
Lager yeast is a little fickle and there’s nowhere to hide the flaws. So you’ve got to be on your game. And because it’s such an enormous portion of our production volume, I’m like, that means we have to be on our game a lot. And while there’s a lot of art in craft beer, we are manufacturers, and I tell my teams, I’m like, we have an obligation to do a great job with this. I mean, we should brew with intentionality. And lager responds well to that. I think we all know that you can hide the flavor of various dead mammals in the right batch of IPA. You certainly can’t do that with a batch of lager beer. And the PR team had spare time, so they gave me a, what do you call that? A catchphrase?

Toby (16:14):
Yeah, there you go.

Larry (16:17):
I need a better one, but I’m not offended by that one.

Toby (16:21):
In your spare time-

Tim (16:24):
[inaudible 00:16:23] Sorry. Did you bring lager to Iron Hill? Was that you?

Larry (16:27):
No, no. I mean, I was part of the team that formulated and brewed it, and I think I was there. I know I was there through what I would consider to be the perfection of the recipe, but that was definitely a group effort and as a result of the same kind of reasoning, which is like, well, if somebody walks up to the bar in a brew pub and says, “Hey, can I get a McUltra?” You know that the very next discussion point’s going to be, “Well, we make our own beer here, so let’s try to find a product we manufacture that’s going to meet your taste needs.” And if that is a New England IPA, we’re probably going to miss with that customer.

(17:02)
I’m not saying you couldn’t get them to enjoy it or that the beer’s not delicious and beautiful, and that under the right circumstances with an extra 15 minutes in a bartender’s life, they could show somebody the beauty of that particular beer style. But if the band’s loud and they’re just trying to get a beer and split, it’s a whole lot easier to say, “We don’t sell that, but I have something you’re going to like.” Right?

Toby (17:22):
There you go. Cool. Well, did the PR team, and again, I’m just throwing stuff all out of left field here. Did the PR team, your PR team, did they give you spots in all of your locations to do your Elton John impersonations?

Larry (17:38):
Look, I’m union, they can’t afford me.

Toby (17:39):
Yeah. Oh, I thought I’d throw that in there.

Tim (17:39):
He’s a star is what he is.

Toby (17:39):
There you go.

Larry (17:46):
That was a very long time ago, and a man got to eat. By the way, I was brewing beer during that time period, and that made for interesting travel.

Toby (18:00):
Oh yeah. Well, great. Cool.

Larry (18:00):
I definitely made almost no money doing both.

Toby (18:04):
Almost no money. Cool. I appreciate you jumping on. Tim, tell us a little bit about yourself.

Tim (18:10):
Well, Larry’s one of the very few people that makes me look like a young man in the industry. I started in ’97 and worked at some brew pub jobs in Philadelphia. First of all, Dock Street, which has some level of notoriety. I worked those jobs for about 10 years, and then I moved into production at Yards for another 10 years, give or take, built a couple breweries with Yards, brewed a whole ton of beer, and enjoyed myself with some great people. And in ’19, or sorry, 2019, I joined the illustrious Country Malt Group, and in fact was interviewed by yourself. I don’t know if you remember that, and have been here ever since.

Toby (18:54):
I like that. The illustrious Country Malt Group.

Tim (18:56):
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Toby (18:57):
Yep. Well, good to have you on, Tim. I appreciate it.

Tim (19:00):
Thank you very much.

Toby (19:01):
And then we’re here with Cheyenne as well. Hi, Cheyenne.

Cheyenne (19:03):
Hello. Hello. I love listening to all these backgrounds here. Larry started brewing in 1992. I was born in 1992, so.

Toby (19:10):
Whoa.

Larry (19:10):
Ouch.

Toby (19:14):
Why? He’s a guest. Come on.

Larry (19:16):
Okay, Boomer. I also was born-

Cheyenne (19:21):
[inaudible 00:19:21] I love it.

Larry (19:21):
… and raised in Ohio, so I’m killing it on the Skibidi toilet scale today.

Cheyenne (19:27):
Listen, I’m a millennial, not a Zoomer, so I don’t know what that means either.

Larry (19:31):
Good job. You love the millennials. You feel our pain now?

Cheyenne (19:36):
Yes. Yeah, I do.

Larry (19:38):
Well, our parent pain.

Cheyenne (19:41):
My sister is 20, and I have never felt older in my life than when I talked to my sister, so.

Larry (19:48):
It gets worse before it gets better.

Cheyenne (19:51):
Good.

Toby (19:52):
Well, between the three of you all, just exclude myself because we’ve got a great panel of individuals that have been in the brewing industry for quite some time. So let’s just jump right in. Today’s episode is not on light lagers, but damn near the complete opposite. We’re talking about roasted malts, I think, right? Of course.

Cheyenne (20:15):
Oh yeah. Yes.

Toby (20:17):
I’m going to ask a very generic question. When do you use roasted malts in beer?

Tim (20:25):
Well, I will kick things off here and argue that roasted malts have two primary characteristics. They have color and they have flavor, and so depending what you want, that’s when you use them in beer, most notably, of course, in porters and stouts and stuff. But also many, many other styles of beer.

Toby (20:51):
Mic drop, episode’s done. That’s all we need to know, right?

Tim (20:53):
Yeah.

Larry (20:55):
He hit the high points. I’ll add to that and say famously, one of the large brewers whose name we won’t mention has used it in small quantities to color adjust [inaudible 00:21:06] that’s not unusual. And I’ll follow on what Tim said there to say that occasionally I use it for bitterness, for intentional astringency. I mean, one of the things that makes some of the dark beer styles so beautiful is in my opinion, the particular bitterness that you get from using some roasted malts.

Toby (21:30):
So Larry, what are your go-tos? Is there a specific level of roast that you use or is all dependent on what you’re brewing with and what you look forward to in your final product?

Larry (21:43):
It’s a tool kit, it’s a toolbox. You put in the tools you need for the job. So for me, I have at my disposal, thankfully, almost every roast known on the planet. I mean, one of the beauties of a brew pub environment is that we know we’re going to overpay for raw goods. When I say overpay, I’m using that loosely because we sell beer basically at retail. So my boss is not going to get upset if I say, “Listen, we’re going to buy this beautiful single variety base malt that’s a dollar a pound.” We can’t do that all the time, but we certainly can do it from time to time when we need to get a specific character. And I do live in the school of thought that when possible I’m going to grab a malt of the origin of the style that I’m trying to reproduce, and I’ll pick on British Pale Chocolate Malt, which if I was going to have a roasted malt in my bucket of beautiful, it would be this malt.

(22:39)
They’re made by a couple of suppliers that we’re all familiar with, and you guys represent several of them. And basically we’re talking about these heirloom varietal Barley’s that these kernels are BB or marble round that are roasted to around 300 SRM. I think that malt is pretty magical in general from almost all the suppliers that make it. For years we’ve purchased from [inaudible 00:23:06] and Crisp and all of the other places where you would expect us to buy that kind of malt. It stores well, so even when we need to, we can buy it in quantity. But I also use a decently large amount of domestic black malt, which tends to be closer to 500, maybe even 600 on color. I joke that’s the malt that kind of tastes like burning, and sometimes you need your malts to taste like burning. But I’m a real fan of especially some of the hybrid roast malts from the continent that are a little bit lighter in color and flavor.

(23:38)
Just started to experiment with them at some length. And I think they’re unique. I mean, there are a handful of malts that kind of straddle the world between crystal and roast, and I think about melanoid malt specifically, which is a really interesting roast malt because it’s not really roast malt, but it’s totally roasted malt. Does that help you understand kind of where my head is on that? I will tell you that in our inventory on the reg, we have always somebody’s pale chocolate 300 British-ish malt, not always from Great Britain and almost always at least roasted barley or somebody’s North American black, because those two items in a brew pub, I might need 100 pounds of it for the gear, depending on the volume coming out of a location. So it’s not onerous to keep a bag of it around. And occasionally you need color and there you go.

(24:32)
There are also a couple of companies, and we’re not going to talk about one of them because I know you don’t sell their products, that make extracts of darkly roasted malts. And as a pub brewer or somebody who’s responsible for pub brewing, I tell my teams, you should have some of that stuff on the shelf 100% of the time. You need a Swiss Army fix here and there for color, it’s very handy. The one that I prefer is technically Ryan Heights cobalt friendly, so no one can even complain about our use of it is being an adjunct or an additive because it’s literally made from malt.

(25:04)
I don’t know that all of the items on the market that do what that one does fall into that bucket, but that kind of product has been sold under lots of brand names over the years. I think the legacy product was called porterine, I mean, if you look at some of the regional producers, especially of amber or lightly dark, and that’s a funny thing to say out loud, lightly dark specialty beers, they have famously been made with dye. If that dye is actual malt extract, it makes me happier. I want to be more authentic if we can. And again, we don’t mind paying a premium for that because we’re looking for it to do something very specific and add very specific flavor characters in it.

Toby (25:50):
Well, we-

Tim (25:51):
Yeah.

Toby (25:52):
Well, oh, I’m sorry, Tim.

Tim (25:54):
Well, having that around, having a porterine type additive around is having dried yeast, not everything goes according to plan, so you always have to have some level of backup, at least is how I look at it as a brewer.

Larry (26:08):
Yeah, Tim, you nailed it. I mean, the same thing goes for our brewers. I’m like, listen, the quality of dry, it’s funny to say out loud because if you’d have told me even 15 years ago that I would be talking about dry yeast that I told you you were nuts because it was pretty horrifying for generations. But lately, we’ve got really high quality stuff, and same deal, especially if you’re a pub brewer, and this isn’t such the case any longer. Tim and I have been around long enough to remember when there wasn’t always a brewery across town. So if you had a problem, and then when I’m talking about a dead yeast problem or a, oh my goodness, I’m out of first malt problem because I’m not paying close attention to my inventory, what were you going to do?

(26:47)
You’re going to sewer the entire batch of beer. So having some dry yeast and some porterine style products on a shelf is a 100% must half. Plus, both of those products tend to have exceedingly long shelf lives. I can’t tell you what the malt extract number is, but I want to say it was 24-ish months, and I know the dry geese are in years, not in weeks or months, which is great.

Toby (27:08):
Yeah, absolutely. Well, you talked a little bit about using malts, a roasted malt from areas where if you want to replicate a beer from a particular area. So you mentioned a little bit about the British malts, that large marble size. Tell me a little bit more about what you’re finding because I think just the typical layman brewer that doesn’t know a hell of a lot about it, what would you say the primary differences are imported versus domestic, and how they’re utilized in your beer selections?

Larry (27:47):
Well, first of all, I would say that mostly it’s just geography. What I think has happened is that there just aren’t very many North American maltsters making especially the pale or chocolate malt.

Toby (28:03):
That’s true.

Larry (28:04):
Although I’m sure that’s changing. And I think part of the reason is that, think back about how the North American malt industry has come together. I mean, we’re all fired up and talking about craft beer, but malts a commodity, and the malt industry was not built to serve small brewers until relatively recently. I mean, I’m old enough to have had a personal relationship with Roger Briess and Marianne Gruber, and to remember back in the days when you just couldn’t buy malt, let alone specialty malt. So the larger brewers, the larger maltsters tended to make four or five malts, and that was it. I mean, I’m being a little hyperbolic to prove a point, but they didn’t make C10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90, 100.

(28:47)
You could buy a dextrin malt, a caramel 60 and a caramel 120 and yeah, we’ve got some black malt in the back if you need it, because one of the major producers is going to order a truckload of it every six months and there you go. So what’s the difference? I think the difference is almost an accident. I’m sure that any of the maltsters in North America could produce the kind of products that I associate with imported British malt especially. So could Great Western or one of the high quality producers make 300 [inaudible 00:29:21] chocolate malt with single variety, or it’s not single vineyard, but get the idea, single farm varietal malt that has a super low per acre yield, but I’m going to pay a buck pound for it, probably. And I’m not sure why they haven’t done that because I am willing to pay for the imported mall. And so I guess the biggest difference isn’t that I think one group has a different capability than the other, it’s just that they seem to be staying in their lane?

(29:52)
And I’m also old enough to know that if it ain’t broke, you don’t fix it. So if I’m pulling in pale chocolate from a British supplier and it’s working for me, you’re going to have a hard time convincing me to move off of that product unless there’s a huge supply chain issue or some drastic change to the quality. Is there a difference? Yes. Is it because it’s imported? Only I think situation. And I’ve always gotten my eye on that because while my boss says, “Hey, listen, we’re not that worried about squeezing a buck on raw goods.” It’s also kind of a lie because he always wants me to make the beer cheaper, not to the point where he’s saying, “Hey, I’m going to limit your spend here,” but always to the point where he will smartly ask, “We’re paying attention to value on that, right?” I’m like, “Yep.” And right now the value seems to be in, for me, talking again about the 300 stuff, in the pale chocolate malt that’s coming out of the British malt houses.

Tim (30:51):
Well, I mean, I would also add that if you’re talking about value and cost of goods and all that kind of stuff, the amount that you use of roasted malt is relatively small, especially in relation to the character that it provides. And so to me, anyways, if you’re going to spend an extra buck on one of your ingredients, try to save some money on the base malt, but also buy what you want because all roasted malts at least have the potential of offering a lot of character in a relatively little amount of pounds.

(31:23)
And then I would also apposite, and really I want to ask Larry about two questions, at least in the British Isles and in the continent of Europe, they really hang their hat on the quality of barley. Canada, of course, has beautiful barley. The American Midwest has the beautiful barley as well. And so I’m interested to hear your thoughts on that. And to go back about our conversation, I totally agree with you about dry yeast coming, improving in leaps and bounds over our careers. Do you think American maltings have improved in leaps and bounds during our brewing careers?

Larry (32:03):
The short answer to the last question is yes, just because technology’s gotten better. I mean, I think if you walk into any modern malt house in North America, you’re going to see some technology that’s old, but not a lot of it. I mean, the technology that’s old is going to be bins and turns and things that I don’t think matter that much. I think the ability to control temperature and humidity has gotten way better, and it just doesn’t make sense to make a malt house that isn’t efficient anymore. So the short answer to that question, Tim, on the end to repeat, is, yeah, I think the quality of North American malt has gone up. I think the quality of barley is really important. I spent a lot of time paying attention to Amber and the development of varietals in North America. It’s a constantly evolving and moving target.

(32:53)
And it wasn’t to a very recent past that people like John Mallet said, “Hey, how come there’s the only flavor line on the Amber acceptance form is acceptable to brewer? Where is the it tastes like deliciousness or is appropriate for different styles of malt?” So there’s been a very different discussion about the quality of the barley variety. For the majority of my career, the question has been, which craft two row blend are you buying? Not which variety of barley is the maltster using to make the base malt you’re buying. So I’m excited about the change in the conversation. I think we’re all aware that a lot of times we don’t get to choose what barley we would buy, even if we’re choosing which malt we buy. And we all know that the rigors of making the best malt mean that the maltster is going to sometimes choose different stuff, and there are obvious exceptions to that.

(33:51)
There’s a huge carve out that has been popular in no small part too, to the working Garrett Oliver and a resurgence in an interest in specifically Maris Otter as a single varietal. I like that idea, but it’s also only just kind of interesting to me because I think brewers, unlike winemakers, and I’m going to pick on winemakers a little bit in this conversation, we’re expected to turn out consistently beautiful product regardless of what the agronomic factors are. Winemakers, I joke all the time, get a total pass. They can tell you, “Well, we had a terrible crop year.” But it’s still 40 bucks a bottle, and nobody-

Tim (34:27):
It’s supposed to taste like that.

Larry (34:28):
Yeah, exactly. Nobody comes to a brewery and says, “Man, the unique character of your Pilsner this year has shifted subtly. Do you want to talk about that vintage? And we say it was a pretty terrible barley year. So there you go. No, that conversation is never happening. Partly our fault as an industry, and I won’t break my arm patting ourselves on the back by saying that I think in general, producers of beer in North America are a little more careful with their quality, especially larger producers where they don’t get a pass. So yeah, I care about the variety of the barley, but I do believe that more of the determining factor of the quality of the malt can be laid at the feet of the maltster. And I include in that their ability and desire to select appropriate varieties and appropriate lots of malt that are coming off of the field.

(35:22)
Climate change is real. That’s me saying that, not the maltster, but if you talk to a barley farmer, they may disagree with the statement I made, but they will definitely tell you that it’s warmer in their field than it was 10 years ago, which put pressure on the barley crop, it’s moving it northward. The Canadians are happy about that because a lot of our barley comes from the middle of the Canadian Shield, but it also means that it’s put pressure on the breeders and on Amber specifically to come up with varieties that yield right, that are plantable and harvestable in the right window, and that do end up meeting the maltsters and then the brewer’s needs. So I talk about barley varieties a lot, but when I purchase malt, I don’t tend to purchase varietals with some notable exceptions, right?

Toby (36:07):
Yeah, 100%. All good there, Larry. And again, when it comes down to the maltster side, just like a brewer, they’re trying to make sure that their consumers, which would be the brewers and distillers out there, have a consistent product. And when they’re going through different, pulling off barley off of different fields and the different areas of North America, it all is dependent on the weather of that year. So their job is to make an end product or a two row or some other kind of variety that lends itself very consistent to the consumer, the customer. And a lot of times if you have a single variety of any type of barley, it’s damn near impossible to get the consistent product year over year. So it’s great stuff, Larry. Thank you.

Larry (36:53):
I mean, we all remember the terrible pre-sprout year, right?

Toby (36:56):
Right.

Larry (36:57):
And I had a contract that year with a company that ended up having to pull in continental barley to hit their targets to deliver to me, and I’m sure the maltster lost money on me that year, but I was very happy that I had the foresight to plan for that. And in that case, it was definitely different varieties than the maltster would’ve used off the North American farms. I agree with you. We rely on the maltster a lot, and I’m glad to say that most of them in my experience, are doing great work.

Toby (37:29):
Tim, I think in China, I think you’ve seen several different roasters in action, different malting companies and facilities typically have different style of roasters. Larry, have you seen your fair share of different roasters amongst some of the maltsters?

Larry (37:50):
Yeah. I remember I was touring the Briess facility in Chilton, Wisconsin, what is the name? [inaudible 00:37:57] moorish, and they were still using these turn of the century-

Toby (38:00):
Ball drum. Yep.

Larry (38:01):
Yeah, those ball roasters, which were amazing. I mean, look, I think we all know that those don’t make the highest quality malt, and I don’t mean that to disparage what Briess is doing. They use drum roasters almost exclusively now, but for many, many years. I mean, that company specifically, I will speak of them fondly forever. They’re one of the reasons that our industry exists. And for years, they were a small family-owned malt facility. I mean, they didn’t have a lot of choice and couldn’t afford bigger, newer roasters until enough of us started buying them all, because before that, they were racing to the bottom on price selling commodity malt to three places. I’m excited about that. So I’ve seen a lot of different roasters in my career. For the most part, they do the same thing and in the same way, I’m happy to say I’m not in the selling equipment to maltsters business because that would be a tall order.

(38:52)
I’ve seen in addition to those ball roasters and what I would consider to be modern drums, I’ve seen a handful of really interesting, especially lately, interesting creations that are showing up at these tiny little, what are we calling them, we’re not calling them boutique maltsters.

Tim (39:08):
Craft maltsters?

Larry (39:10):
There you go. Thank you for that. You think after 30 years in the [inaudible 00:39:14] that I’d know the segments that we’re working on, but the craft maltsters are really bootstrapping all of their equipment, making salad in boxes out of old milk tanks and roasters out of all kinds of stuff. I saw a roaster at a place I won’t mention because they’re wonderful people, and this is a funny story that they might not want to share, had made a roaster out of a silo and the thing wouldn’t rotate right and they were burning malt. For me, it was fun. I think for them it was a nightmare, but it was fun for me because I got to watch somebody trying to solve this problem. And they ended up in a good place, but mostly by buying from somebody else. And here we come back to the age-old adage of, to get what you pay for, especially when it comes to tools, you got to buy good stuff.

(39:59)
I think that the technology is interesting, but it’s also pretty well understood at this point. I mean, we got a drum or a tube that’s got heat and a way to control humidity and a way to douse flames and how you get that done, thankfully is not my job. But as long as you’ve got good control over time, temperature, and motion, and you’ve got some experience doing it, you’re going to create great roasts of barley, great roasts of malt. I think we’re all aware too that crystal malts, and I know we’re not here to talk about crystal malts, but crystal malts can be made in roasters too. So some of the better malt facilities have really high-tech roasters that I think are pretty amazing. And I think the last time I was in a malt house looking at a roaster, I was blown away by the fact that the roaster was basically the size of a ship. I mean, these things tend to get big. The salad and boxes have gotten bigger over the years too, as the technology to manage that stuff has gotten better.

Toby (40:58):
Yeah, absolutely. There’s some German maltsters specifically one that we carry that that has a very unique fluid bed roasting. It’s in small batch too, but the thought is that the kernels never make contact with the hot exterior part of a typical drum. So it keeps a lot more consistency and doesn’t tend to burn the husk on the kernel itself. So it’s come a long ways for sure.

Tim (41:28):
Which is something that we talked about color and character and kind of stuff like that, and these malts and de-husked malts, and a lot of people are trying to make malts that are really only for color. I think that’s been around for a long time, but the advent of the black IPA might’ve accelerated the success of those malts. I’m not sure. But those are good examples of the maltsters really making malt mostly for color rather than character or flavor.

Larry (42:02):
I’m going to poke at black IPA for just a minute because you mean American Porter or American Stout?

Tim (42:07):
[Inaudible 00:42:07] a lot of flavor, you know.

Larry (42:11):
Sorry, Cascadian dark black IPA beer.

Toby (42:15):
What have you. Yeah.

Larry (42:18):
Yeah. I had a kind of public argument with a friend and in the not too distant past. He was like, “You know there’s absolutely no roast malt flavor in that black IPA.” I’m like, “I don’t know if you’re drinking the same beer I am.” But even with de-husked and de-bittered black malts and dark roast malts, there’s still going to be some carryover of that flavor, to get a beer to be that dark and actually use a ground roast is, it is nearly impossible to not have some carryover in my experience.

Cheyenne (42:46):
We’re just so excited to talk. I love it. No, I was saying that I’m so glad that we got Larry on because I think I could sit here and listen to him talk about almost anything. I said, “Yeah, keep talking, Larry. This is fun.” I’m learning stuff. I love it.

Larry (43:01):
Well, in a former life, I had a partner who was in the malt industry. So not only have I been around for a very long time, but I’ve seen behind the curtain probably far more than most people, and because I’m very interested in it, right?

Cheyenne (43:13):
Yeah. Well, you know your stuff for sure. So that’s awesome. You had mentioned something at the very beginning of our conversation, which I thought was really interesting. So I want to spin back and have you talk more about it, but you had said that sometimes you like to include roast malt to get a little bit of that bitterness in your final product and get that astringency. Can you talk more about that?

Larry (43:34):
Yeah. Let’s talk about one of the most famous beers made with a roasted product. I think we all kind of know that that stout, and I’ll pick on dry stout, is a technological innovation. We have stout because it was cheaper to make than Porter because of the invention of patented black malt. Because the invention of a roaster that wouldn’t burn the malt. And there’s a great example of a beer style whose flavor and whose bitterness specifically I believe, comes substantially from the use of a roasted product and the bitterness from iso-alpha acids, I think we all understand it, we know how we experience it, but any flavor build and a beer specifically is the sum of its parts, and the idea is that altogether they equal more than their individual constituent components. And that beer style is a great example of this idea.

(44:29)
It’s also a place where if you’re not careful, you can over roast it or you can over bitter it. And I don’t think that there’s a limit to the amount of roasted malt that you can use, but eventually you’re going to hit that astringency wall. And if you’re not thoughtful or mindful about the formulation of that product, then you drop, let’s pick on a 10 [inaudible 00:44:49] dry stout made by some group up down the road, and the brewer may be lovely young person, but not necessarily experienced, opens up a style guide and says, “Hey, this beer’s supposed to be 30 heavy use.” And they don’t necessarily make their formulation in the context of the response that’s going in the beer. So they drop in arbitrary 30 IBUs or whatever that looks like in their brewery. And then they go and they’re like, “Well, the range for a roasted malt in this style was five-ish percent, which is a lot, and I really want it to be roasty, so I’m going to use 7%.

(45:20)
And then they drop that beer and I’m tasting it, and I’m like, man, this is very bitter beer. It doesn’t stand alone as bitterness. So in my experience, if the beer’s made carefully, you get this nice balance of the iso and the phenols and the byproducts of the roasting coming together to create a full bitter experience or a full drying experience in your mouth. I think that a lot of the dryness of dry stout is not because the beers necessarily have a low parity degree of attenuation or a real degree of fermentation. It’s because that roasted malt actually adds some of that astringency to your tongue. And astringency is often described as dry. Somebody asked me about this recently. They’re like, “Why is dry stout called dry stout, it’s not, beer’s wet.” I’m like, “All right, well, you need to learn about the balance of sugar.” But you’re not entirely wrong that there’s more to it than that. Cheyenne, does that help you hear what I’m thinking about in relation to that?

Cheyenne (46:18):
Yes. Absolutely. Yeah, that’s fascinating. You kind just walked us right to the next thing that I wanted to hear you talk about. Can you just talk to us a little bit about how you build roasted malt in general in a recipe? Can you talk to us about water pH, inclusion rate of the malt? I know that’s a very broad question given how many styles there are, but how do you approach that?

Larry (46:37):
That’s okay. It’s a great question and it’s a pretty straightforward one. I think first thing to remember is that any inclusion of a roasted malt in your mash build is going to pull down the pH. So there’s actually a benefit for that, and I love that, and I’m almost always looking for things to pull pH down. So the largest portion of my career has been brewing beer in places where water comes out of deep draw limestone aquifers or surface water that tends to be pretty high in mineral content. And that creates an interesting challenge to make beers that are soft, you have to be very thoughtful and very careful with the things that are contributing bitterness to your beer and where the pH is. So while, and I’ll also say, while I worry about mash pH like all good brewers do, I don’t tend to lose sleep over it.

(47:25)
I mean, the maltsters, again here have done wonderful work in creating base malts that if we’ve thought thoughtfully and carefully are going to get our mash pH more or less where they need to be, unless we’re aware of things like a lot of alkalinity and a lot of buffering. I made beer for years in Northwest, Pennsylvania whose water looks like Munich and Munich, if you’re not aware, it has pretty hard water. And there’s a reason that town was famous for dark lager. I mean, the water lends itself to a decently large edition of roasted malts because the roast, well, it’s an interesting juxtaposition. The roast will add some bitterness, but by pulling down the mash pH, we change the type of astringency that ends up in the finished beer. We don’t necessarily favor the astringency that a high pH match might pull out of the phenolics from the grain husks, but we get some other astringency from the use of the roast malts.

(48:21)
And of course, we’re always balancing the BUs on the hop side. So when I’m formulating with roast malts, I tend to start with two pieces of information. Number one, what’s style appropriate? I’m not going to go grab large quantities of super roasty American malt to try to make a London Porter, although there will certainly be some inclusion there because I think a blend of malts is important for some of these beers. And I think that matters. And I apologize, I just lost my train of thought there for about two seconds. It’s going to come back. Oh, recipe for [inaudible 00:48:56] sorry. So I’m going to lean into the malt that’s style appropriate, and I’m going to pay attention to the alkalinity and the pH of the water. So I know what I need to do to balance it. But mostly I’m saying, hey, what’s the flavor profile I’m looking for?

(49:11)
And I’m targeting my mineral additions and my acid additions to work the flavor more than work the mash pH. If I’m coming in with a mash pH that’s around five, six, which is technically a little high for [inaudible 00:49:24] perfect, but the beer tastes great, I’m not going to stress about the mash pH. If I’m landing at 5.3, 5.2 in my mash pH, but the beer feels out of balance or tastes out of balance, then I’m going to attack it again in a different way. I’m either going to change the mineral content of the mash water, which I don’t tend to do, or more likely aggressively, or I’m more likely to go after the combination of malts. There’s a beer out there in the world that I’m a huge fan of that I think really showcases this balance. And it’s Edmund Fitzgerald Porter from Great Lakes Brewing Company in Cleveland, Ohio.

(49:58)
Those guys have always just done a beautiful job. And this beer specifically is just full of the soft bitterness of lightly roasted malts, but also you can literally feel the mineral content in the beer. It’s chalky, but in the best possible way. And I think that there’s a great example of this idea that they’re using relatively hard water to brew that beer, and it should have a pretty decently large amount of astringency for the grist build that’s in that beer. But the use of, and I may get this wrong and I don’t brew with that brewery, but it feels like a substantially large addition of calcium chloride.

(50:38)
Chlorides tend to soften, and calcium in general is just good for beer everywhere. It brings pH down all over the place, or it helps pH be in the right place all over the place. And I love the way those guys have attacked this problem. So for me, it’s about balancing those inputs to achieve a flavor goal. And I think that the longer that we work in this business and the more we use products from different suppliers, the more frame of reference we have about which ones are going to lead to the outcome that we’re looking for. So Cheyenne, I hope that answered your question, and if you’ve got a follow-up, I’m happy to talk about it more.

Cheyenne (51:12):
No, that definitely answered my question, and suddenly I’m very thirsty.

Larry (51:18):
Yeah. I don’t think I have any Edmund Fitz, but I’m going to be in the Midwest over the weekend for a wedding, and now I’m going to be looking for it, I think.

Cheyenne (51:24):
Perfect. I like it. Can you talk to us a little bit about the supporting ingredients that you might use in a recipe that uses roasted malt specifically? I’m thinking hops, you had already mentioned hops a little bit. Can you talk more about that?

Larry (51:37):
Yeah. I mean, look, we’re making beer, it’s barley, malt, water, hops, yeast, and et al, the et al these days is interesting. I think we all know that dry stout specifically is famous for its addition of flaked barley. And that’s not necessarily, in my opinion, to soften the bitterness. It’s about giving a beer with a relatively low density, a nice tight head that’ll persist to the bottom of a glass, especially of either nitrogenated or low carbonated real cask ale. That being said, craft brewers in America are famous for making oatmeal stout, and there is definitely something to be said for the addition of oats or barley in their flaked format for softening the product. But I think mostly that’s about leaving behind both fermentable and unfermentable sugars. And some of the flavors that you get just because, I mean, grain is flavorful, and some of those flavors are sweet honey, you can’t really smell sweet, but you can taste sweet. Ethanol is sweet so you get the ethanol component is important there.

(52:38)
But at the end of the day, it’s style specific or it’s outcome specific. So what supporting elements did you choose to add to your beer matter? So I think the style matters and your outcome matters because as we’ve already discussed, roast malts are doing different things for the beer and the way the other ingredients work together to lead to the final product varies greatly depending on what you’re trying to get done. I think that a lot of times people look at roast malts and they think about them in one dimension, and we’ve already disabused everybody of that idea, I think, which is to say, hey, don’t just look for the color and do the math to figure out what the color is. And I guess maybe we haven’t talked about that. A little bit of very dark malt is not the same in your beer as a whole lot of relatively lightly roasted malt.

(53:28)
I think the balance of those two items together will get you the flavor you want, and you got to play with that a little bit. But you got to experiment with that. And if you’re choosing to use other adjuncts in there that are rounding out the grist build, well great. But the mash temp matters. The ADF matters. So which yeast you’re choosing matters. And of course the ethanol content matters. I think everybody forgets that alcohol’s a sugar, it’s a five carbon sugar and that it’s a little bit sweet. So the more alcohol that ends up a new product, the sweeter it’s going to be, and that’s going to change the balance of [inaudible 00:54:04]

Tim (54:05):
Well, to glom onto what Larry was saying, I think there’s also, and I’m sure Larry would further expound on this, but we’re talking about astringency from dark malts. So you have to balance that with hops. And so you would not only have to balance it with the bitterness that hops gives and the degree of fermentation or the degree of extract that the yeast affects, but also the character of it. I mean, I would argue that some of the great British yeast produce esters that really, really line up beautifully with dark malts as do certain types of hops.

Larry (54:49):
Hard agree on that. I mean, think specifically about some of the fruity esters in the London Ale strain specifically, along with, I think we all know that, or at least I am going to tell you that I’ve experienced some of the dark roasted malts, and even some of the medium roasted malts will start to kick off even the fruity flavors under certain circumstances. And to Tim’s point, the synergy with the right yeast strain is really important.

Cheyenne (55:14):
So Larry, you had, I have to take a little side tangent here because I was looking at the website, your guys’ website, you had mentioned oats as an adjunct in some of these beers. I just have to point out the most fantastic name I’ve ever seen for a beer, which is Holland Oats Milk Stout. I laughed at that for a solid minute when I first saw that. That is amazing. Did you come up with that name?

Larry (55:37):
I did not come up with that name. Somebody from the marketing department definitely did but I will-

Cheyenne (55:45):
The PR team came up with that?

Larry (55:45):
But I will tell you, it was actually, I think it was a guy named Zeke, as a matter of fact. And if I got that wrong, I’m sure that the other two people on that team will let me know about it. But any case, that name is awesome. I’m also old enough to understand who Holland Oats are. They’re meaningful and important in my life. And the can mock or the can logo for that includes two cows wearing slotted sunglasses. So as a proper Gen Xer, it also hits me where I live, and I happen to love that beer. I mean, obviously it’s a milk stout, and the adjunct there is lactose, which by the way, I’m going to take this time to make a public service announcement, which is to say that lactose does not make your beer sweet. Please, please do not tell people that lactose made your beer sweet.

(56:35)
Lactose is a long chain sugar, and if you think lactose is going to make your beer sweet, I encourage you to taste a very small quantity of lactose. Then you’re going to be like, “Hey, that’s not sweet.” It does increase the residual density of your beer. It adds some fullness to a beer, which can overlap and accentuate some of the sweet characters of a product. But we had a pretty fun and rowdy fight inside the company around that beer and that idea. I was training somebody and I said, “So why do we put lactose in this beer?” And the person in question said, “To make the beer sweet.” And I’m like, “You are wrong.” And he’s like, “But our marketing copy says that.” And I’m like, “Well, the marketing copy was not written by a brewer, right?” And I’m not going to change it because it looks great on the can. But thank you Cheyenne for shouting out about one of our beers. We actually just made a throwback batch of that and distributed it.

Cheyenne (57:33):
That’s amazing. We’re going to invite you onto whatever episode we do next about lactose, we’ll get you riled up about it.

Larry (57:40):
Also, it’s an allergen people, pay attention.

Cheyenne (57:42):
Yes. Yeah. Very good point. Awesome. Well, I know that you’re a busy man here. We don’t want to keep you too long, but I want to wrap up with one last question here. What are some of your favorite beers that use roasted malts? I mean, obviously you’ve shouted a couple already, but what do you got?

Larry (57:58):
Yeah, I mean, listen, I’m going to go to the continent too, I mean, who doesn’t love an Aventinus? I mean, seriously, plus any Munich dunkel, thank you very much. Also, and I’ll say this to the younger, newer brewers out there, this is a great beer style to learn about recipe formulation because it’s pretty hard. I’m going to knock wood when I say this to mess up a Munich dunkel. If you can manage the lager fermentation carefully, the grist build is hard to mess up. Obviously, I have a soft spot in my heart for the Edmund Fitz, and to this day, I have cases stashed in my basement of the 20 year in a row award-winning Russian Imperial Stout from Iron Hill, which is not so loosely based on a series of British beers that are very rarely made and very rarely sold because of the way alcohol’s taxed in Great Britain. So I’m kind of there.

(58:59)
Who doesn’t love a Black Butte Porter? And any of the beers from Anchor that you or I would stand in line to get to this day, especially as who knows what’s going on with Anchor these days. I think they got bought again. Hopefully they continue to make Anchor Porter and some of the dark beers on that, especially in the Harvest occasionally over the years has had a decent amount of roast malt as a component. I am a dark beer drinker and a dark beer lover. I think it’s an interesting time to be in the beer business because there has been a subtle shift or maybe a not so subtle shift back towards what I call legacy lager beer.

(59:41)
A maple Black Label is suddenly a thing again. And while I’m super excited about that for all kinds of reasons, I like to see people hitting legacy beer styles, I want to be careful that the nostalgia we have for those brands takes into account the fact that I think they’re better made than they ever have been. I was looking at a paper recently, sorry, it’s a side tangent, talking about the levels of diastole and continental lager beer, and it had information going back into the late 40s and the early 50s, and there used to be a whole lot more butter in almost all of that lager beer, which I think is an interesting thing. We’ll talk about that another time maybe. Cheyenne, does that help you put a couple beers on your tick list?

Cheyenne (01:00:20):
Oh, definitely. And Black Butte Porter. I love the shout-out. That’s one of my favorites too.

Larry (01:00:25):
Right. I mean, just great brewers making beautiful beer with I believe malt from the Pacific Northwest, perhaps sold from one of the companies that you guys represent.

Cheyenne (01:00:37):
Definitely.

Toby (01:00:39):
Well, all good stuff, Larry. I appreciate it. And I know you’re busy doing some training and stuff up there, but we appreciate you jumping on board and chatting with us a little bit. It’s been a welcoming and fantastic conversation.

Larry (01:00:51):
Entirely my pleasure. You guys are doing great work and look forward to seeing you at one of the shows in the near future.

Toby (01:00:57):
Yeah, absolutely. And for those listeners out there, if you’re up in Larry’s neck of the woods, drop in to Crooked Hammock. I’m sure you will find all the products you want and you will enjoy yourself heavily. All right, thanks so much, Larry, for your time.

Larry (01:01:10):
Guys. Have a great one.

Toby (01:01:11):
Well, thank you to our guests, Larry Horwitz and Tim Roberts. Always awesome to have Tim on. And Larry, he’s a great guest, really enjoyed having him on.

Cheyenne (01:01:21):
He was so fun to talk to. I feel like, I mean, I’ve been in the brewing industry for a while now and I feel like I’ve learned so much just getting to listen to him talk. That was great.

Toby (01:01:29):
Yeah. Hopefully our listeners did too. Great guy. Anyways, if you have any questions about roasted malts or looking for recommendations, we’re always here. Be sure to reach out to your Country Malt Group rep. Thanks for tuning in. If you enjoy the Brew Deck podcast, be sure to leave us a rating and review wherever you listen to podcasts or Cheyenne, what do we say we’re going to do? Throw up pigeons, carrier pigeons?

Cheyenne (01:01:51):
Carry pigeons.

Toby (01:01:52):
Yeah, right. Do that too. And I don’t know what you’ll get out of it, but it’s a good way to attempt to listen to us. So I appreciate everybody’s ears today and all of our guests and Abi as well. We’ll be back next month for another episode. Cheers, everybody.

Cheyenne (01:02:07):
Cheers.

Abi (01:02:07):
Cheers.

Toby (01:02:07):
Bye.