EPISODE S.6, E.14

[BREWER’S PASSPORT MALT EDITION]

Heather Jerred (00:09):

Welcome back to another episode of the BrewDeck podcast. I am your host, Heather, and I am joined by our other host, Brittany. Hi, Brittany. How are you?

Brittany Drennan (00:18):

I’m good. I had a relaxing weekend and I made some Pop Tarts from scratch.

Heather Jerred (00:25):

Oh, my God. Okay. I’m going to have to drop this because that’s a really big Taylor Swift thing to do because she’s famous for making her Pop Tarts. They’re going to cut all the Taylor Swift talk out. Leave all the Taylor Swift talk in.

Brittany Drennan (00:36):

I was not optimistic. It was my first time.

Heather Jerred (00:40):

And they were good?

Brittany Drennan (00:41):

They actually turned out really good. They were hideous but-

Heather Jerred (00:43):

But they tasted good. As we’re coming into fall and winter here, of course, it’s pouring rain in Vancouver now, my girlfriend and I were talking about making soup, and I was talking about that lemon chicken soup recipe you gave me last year.

Brittany Drennan (00:43):

Good soup.

Heather Jerred (00:58):

Such good soup.

Brittany Drennan (01:01):

Good soup.

Heather Jerred (01:02):

And so I’m craving it now and I want to make it again. Because I made a big batch of it for me and my friend and she was like, “Yeah, we need to do that again.” You are a good recipe sharer, I will say that.

Brittany Drennan (01:10):

I’m jealous. I’m jealous. I can’t wait for soup season here. We still are probably looking at another month before our temperatures drop, so yay for that.

Heather Jerred (01:22):

Well, we actually do have a really full episode today, so I’m going to jump in. We are going to be talking about our European malt brands. As everybody probably knows, we brought on some new brands this year, Castle, Tchecomalt and Durst, and then of course we always have Bairds and Fawcett as well as BESTMALZ. So we wanted to bring some people on to just chat about some of our European malts.

Brittany Drennan (01:48):

Yeah, it’s really exciting. We are going to be talking with some of our teammates from across the pond. We’ve got someone from our Castle malting team in Belgium, we have someone from our Bairds team in Scotland and someone from our Tchecomalt team in Czechia. They’re going to be giving us a closer look into the long history of their malt brands, and when we say long history, we mean over 200 years each.

Heather Jerred (02:16):

I always say it in the episode when we were talking to them, I’m like, “We’re just over 100 here with Canada Malting and that’s a lot. So talking to-

Brittany Drennan (02:25):

Yeah. We’re sweet baby angels in the grand scheme of things.

Heather Jerred (02:27):

For real. It’s really, really cool to hear the history of these malting brands. We were really lucky to get to have these guys on.

Brittany Drennan (02:34):

Absolutely. With that though, a quick disclaimer here, as we are talking to our friends around the world on this episode, naturally-

Heather Jerred (02:42):

Of course.

Brittany Drennan (02:42):

… we experienced some connectivity issues. So we do apologize in advance for the sound quality.

Heather Jerred (02:49):

Yeah, there’s definitely some stuff that got a little jumbled and a little robotic, but most of the info is all there for you. And like I said, we do have a full house, so let’s just jump right in.

Brittany Drennan (03:00):

Let’s do it.

Heather Jerred (03:01):

Well, we have a full house today, so I think we should probably just jump in and we’ll let our guests introduce themselves. Richard, do you want to start us off?

Dr Richard Broadbent (03:11):

Can do. Thank you. So I’m Richard Broadbent. I’m general manager for the UK business. I’ve been with Bairds for around about 23 years in a variety of production and operational roles. And then just over five years ago, I was asked to look after the UK business as a whole. Of course, a couple of years ago, we merged with Soufflet and now taken on the Burton plant into the Bairds group as well. So pleased to be with us today.

Heather Jerred (03:41):

Can you tell us where you’re located?

Dr Richard Broadbent (03:44):

Yeah, okay. So I’m based in our Witham plant in Essex, which is our southernmost plant, but as you may well hear from my accent, I’m not born and bred in Essex. I lived in Edinburgh for 30 years, educated in Edinburgh and then moved down with the business actually about 18 years ago.

Heather Jerred (04:05):

Ondrej?

Ondrej Vlasanek (04:05):

Hello, my name is Ondrej and I’m from Czech Republic based in Prague, and I’m representing the Tchecomalt brand. We have five malting plants and with production capacity about 360,000 tons of malt in one year. And I am an area sales manager responsible for the German and Austrian market, but also for the overseas territory like New Zealand, Australia, Japan, and the US.

Brittany Drennan (04:42):

We have someone from Castle Malting here.

Mattijs Nuyts (04:46):

Yes, hello, my name is Mattijs. I’m based in Belgium in one of the oldest malting plants in the world, I think. So I work for Castle Malting, or in French, Malterie du Château. I’m responsible for beautiful beer country, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Scandinavia.

Brittany Drennan (05:08):

Well, thank you all for being here. You all come from very different backgrounds and represent very different brands, all part of, like you said, the Soufflet family. Can each of you maybe talk a little bit about your malting companies and maybe share some of your brand origin stories? Maybe we start with Richard.

Dr Richard Broadbent (05:32):

Yeah, of course. So Bairds Malt is the largest UK maltster with around about 425,000 tons worth of capacity. We have three maltings in Scotland and two in England. So our maltings in Scotland are just beside Inverness and beside Arbroath, which is close to Dundee on the east coast; Pencaitland, which is just outside Edinburgh. And then our two plants in England, which are in Witham in Essex, and then Burton on Trent, which is right in the heart of England. So from there, those five plants we supply the UK brewing and distilling industries. We also export maybe around about 10% of our production capacity again to brewing, distilling, and peated malt volumes around the world.

Heather Jerred (06:23):

Ondrej, do you want to tell us a little bit more about Tchecomalt and the history of that malting facility?

Ondrej Vlasanek (06:28):

So as I told you, we have five malting plants in Czech Republic with capacity 365,000 tons in one year. And we produce not only Pilsen malt, but all various kind of malts like Munich malt, Vienna malt, but also floor malt and special malts like caramel malts and chocolate malts. Dive into the heart of Central Europe in a setting of impressive cultural richness. This is a country of character and tradition. The Czech Republic has an exceptional territory that has given birth to legendary beers. These beers are the results of this unique heritage and inimitable know-how have conquered the whole world. We have about 1,000 years of history of brewing. This is our know-how.

(07:33):

Since end of the 10th century, Czech brewers have developed remarkable know-how by selecting the best local ingredients to create exceptional beers. And first made Pilsen beer was in 1842 in the west of the country. So this is about the history. And regarding the malt and barley, I can tell you that our barley is grown in the heart of historic Bohemia-Moravia production areas and benefits from an exceptional territory in Haná Triangle. This region is known as malt capital and is characterized by its temperate climate and rich soils which provide perfect conditions for producing high quality barley.

Brittany Drennan (08:29):

Tell us about Castle.

Mattijs Nuyts (08:31):

So hi. Welcome in [inaudible 00:08:32]. Actually, our maltery plant is in Beloeil and we are located in Belgium, the beer country of the world. A very small country with a lot of beers, so a lot of beer styles, and that’s also where we benefit from, from the heritage of the Belgian beer industries. We are Malterie du Château or Castle Malting in English, and we are the oldest malting plant in Belgium and probably also one of the oldest malting plants in the world.

(09:08):

So our malting plant is founded in 1861, a long time ago, and we survived a lot of troubles in Europe, like the two world wars. Our maltery plant had suffered a very big damage in the world wars. After world wars, of course, we went through and beginning of the 2000s, the previous owners were closing the maltery. Luckily, we had Jean-Louis Dourcy, our previous owner who bought the malthouse and who benefited from actually closure of other malting plants in Belgium.

(09:48):

So that means there was a big gap in the market. And at this point, we are actually the leading specialty malt producer in Belgium and we are providing malt to more than 3,600 brewers over more than 147 countries worldwide. Also, our name is actually named after the nearby Castle of Beloeil. That’s why we are called now Castle Malting since 2003.

Heather Jerred (10:25):

Also, Belgium, definitely amazing beer country. I went a couple of years ago on a little beer tour. It was absolutely fantastic. All of your brands have been around for 200 years, which we’re kicking it over here just over 100. And so that feels insane to us to have something. How have the brands evolved over time?

Dr Richard Broadbent (10:51):

It has evolved. We’ve got a history of just over 200 years now, and it was founded back in 1823 by the brothers Frank and Hugh Baird. Initially, they actually created brewery, built a brewery in Glasgow in Scotland, and then very shortly afterwards in 1832, they actually built their first maltings and that maltings was to supply both their own brewery but also other breweries in the local area. Their vision really was to supply high quality malts to other breweries across the Glasgow region, and we can very much align with that vision even today.

(11:35):

The business expanded through the 1800s and 1900s across the UK, and at one point, I think in England we had over 24 maltings. We have no floor maltings left sadly now, but the business concentrated its production footprint in two malting plants in the 1960s. So one in the south, supplying the brewing industry, which was our Witham and Essex plant, and then one just outside Edinburgh in Pencaitland supplying mostly brewing, but a bit of distilling from that point.

(12:14):

And that was the case for almost 40 years before there was a merger with another malting business in Scotland and England called Moray Firth Maltings. That was in 1999, a production footprint in the UK. So that was Inverness, Arbroath and Grantham Maltings, which sadly we no longer have. And that production footprint stayed the same for probably 20 years or so until we sold Grantham. And then very recently, we’ve acquired the Burton plant, our Burton Upon Trent Plant in the heart of England as well. So a rich history. For that period, we’ve really focused our business on supplying the brewing industry and the distilling industry. Certainly, recently, up until the merger with the Burton plant, we were very much focusing on distilling in the UK and on the back of expansions through the last 15 years or so. And that has gone very well for us.

(13:16):

We’ve expanded two plants in the UK to meet that growing demand and really positioned our business as a high quality brewing and mainly distilling malt producer in the UK. And we actually only export a very small amount of our products. But with the absorption of the Burton Upon Trent plant, which for those of you who know UK Brewing history, the Burton plant is right in the heart of UK brewing from the last 100 years or so, a very rich history of brewing in Burton. Some very famous brands, et cetera, came from there. So that’s why the plant was there.

(14:02):

There are still two huge breweries in Burton Upon Trent, one by Molson Coors now and one by, I think it’s Carlsberg. So that focus has certainly brought us back round to now focusing almost equally on brewing and distilling in the UK, but about equal in tons of production for both markets. And that’s been a pleasure to see happen again. So we’ve now got a great brand position for both brewing and distilling. We’re ideally suited, geographically, for both markets and the plants that we have are just perfect for those markets as well. So it started off in brewing, moved to distilling and came back to split between brewing and distilling.

Heather Jerred (14:52):

I was going to ask you, it’s about 50/50 between the two? Between this one and-

Dr Richard Broadbent (14:56):

Yes, we’re almost exactly 50/50.

Heather Jerred (14:58):

Amazing.

Brittany Drennan (14:59):

That’s fascinating to me because I feel like there’s so much whiskey over there. I’m surprised to hear that it is 50/50. That’s cool though.

Dr Richard Broadbent (15:10):

Well, our production footprint is 50/50. The UK market is about probably 65 to 70% distilling and the opposite of brewing, which has turned around. So if you go back 15 years, then it was probably the other way round and distilling was definitely the smaller market. But that 15-year period has seen a growth in particularly the Scotch whiskey industry. We now have quite a big English whiskey industry growing as well, and the brewing industry has been on a slow taper, slightly downwards for the last 15 years so that the markets have flipped around.

Heather Jerred (15:53):

How has the Castle brand evolved over the past 200 years?

Mattijs Nuyts (15:58):

Well, in Belgium, actually, a lot of breweries in 1800s, beginning 1900s provided their own malts. So all of the breweries had their own maltery, but of course with the industrialization, every brewery wanted to have the malt it provided. So a lot of other malteries came up and, of course, Malterie du Château is one of the malteries who came up in late 1800s. I have to be honest, we were not that sexy maltery we are right now, because mostly the malteries provided base malts. So until begin 2000s, I assume most maltery-

Heather Jerred (16:53):

Base malts are sexy.

Mattijs Nuyts (16:57):

… we produced were just base malt or Pilsner malts, lager malts. After that, of course, 2003, a lot of malteries closed down. Sorry? Beginning of the 2000s, 2003, a lot of malteries closed and especially malteries from the big brand AB InBev, they closed down some malteries in Belgium [inaudible 00:17:28] big advantage and a big gap in the Belgian market.

(17:31):

So he focused actually not only on the base malts like most of the malteries here in the region did, but we actually focused more on specialty malts. Why? Actually, logically, because it’s very logical because the Belgian beer industry, they demanded a lot of specialty malts. We have such a broad and such a beautiful beer range and beer style range. So the demand of specialty malts was very big, and that’s why our previous owner, he searched, of course, for opportunities and that was a big opportunity.

(18:19):

Beginning of the 2000s, we actually focused more and more on specialty malts. That’s where we are known for right now because I think we have more than 120 different SKUs. So more than 120 different kinds of malts you can buy at our malthouse. And that’s also how we differentiated ourselves from the other malteries because we were or we are one of the first craft malteries in Belgium. And now, of course, we are very specialized in roasted malts and also caramel malts, especially for our production and our knowledge about the Belgian beer styles and the Belgian demand of specialty malts.

Brittany Drennan (19:20):

So you all are in different, obviously, regions. Can you speak a little bit to regional influences like geography, agriculture, and climate, and how those play roles in your malt specifically? Ondrej, do you want to go first?

Ondrej Vlasanek (19:38):

I can say that throughout the years, the generation of maltsters under the Tchecomalt brand has collaborated with local cultivators to create an exclusive array of brewing barleys and doing its malts with the distinctive sensory characteristic of König Pilsener beers, the bottom-fermented libations now celebrated worldwide. Among these are Bojos barley selectively bred from indigenous varieties holds favor for its optimal protein, enzyme, and sugar profiles. It yields a Pilsen malt that harmoniously melts subtle aromatic nuances, blending the mellowness of honey with herbaceous undertones resulting in a gentle, luminous golden brew.

Brittany Drennan (20:37):

Richard, what about you? What are some regional, geographical, agricultural, and climate roles with Bairds?

Dr Richard Broadbent (20:47):

Okay. Yeah, the UK climate is sufficiently different to provide malts with a different character and those can be quite well-recognized around the globe. Our pale malt and roasted malts have very subtle flavors, and these have been the basis for great ales and pale ales known around the globe. Of course, in the UK we have two quite distinct markets and our distilling malts are well-renowned all over the globe for their very high spirit yield and ease of processing, which really comes back from the growing conditions and particularly the low protein levels that we have, and maybe I’ll touch on in a little bit as well.

(21:30):

And particularly the long day lengths and the cool growing conditions that we get in Scotland where it is geographically on the globe, and of course a very regular dousing of rain to keep the barley plants well-hydrated. So all in all, that leads to quite distinctive high quality barley in Scotland for distilling. And our soils in the UK are pretty fertile, and I’m pleased to see that we generate fairly low protein and high starch levels in our grains, which we’ve got pretty good climate and good growing conditions for both brewing and distilling malts.

Brittany Drennan (22:16):

Can you speak at all to the peat? And I know there was… Wasn’t there a shortage many years ago? Or it was tough to source? Is that still happening?

Dr Richard Broadbent (22:26):

Yes. The peated malt is in relatively short demand. Obviously, by making peated malt, we are extracting a fuel source, which has been in the ground for many thousands of years. And the UK government, in particular, are very much keen that any peat bogs which are extracted are, of course, regenerated. So it’s extremely challenging to extract any more peat than you’re allowed under your permit.

(22:58):

So getting more peat or peated malt is a big challenge for us. So we are fortunate to have a facility in Inverness where we burn peats and send it through our grain beds just before the end of the kilning process and for anywhere between two and four days, which creates this extremely strong peated malt, which is in high demand. And there’s a finite supply of peated malt at the moment.

Brittany Drennan (23:31):

I know we’ve got some connection issues. We maybe try one more time to hear about geography, climate and agriculture in Belgium.

Mattijs Nuyts (23:40):

Actually, Belgium is a little bit the center point of Europe, our politics are located here because we’re the center of Europe. That’s quite interesting because Belgium has always been a play ball of European history. And at this point, we have a big advantage of being this play ball because we are centered between bigger nations like UK, like France, like Germany, Netherland. And that’s interesting because we are a small country. We are not the biggest agriculture country of Europe and we benefit from our neighbors.

(24:17):

So we have actually the best of the best, the best of every country, and we benefit from there. Also, in terms of beer styles, we were centered between all these countries and we actually benefit from everywhere a little bit. That’s the reason why we have such a big, let us call it, a soup of beer styles. And that’s interesting because we use, for example, it’s nothing against Germany, but in Belgium they have the Reinheitsgebot.

(24:51):

But in Belgium we can use everything. So we had some spices from the Netherlands, for example. We had some brewing techniques and malts from England, from the ales, these things we have. At this point, most of our malt comes from France, so we benefit from France, big agriculture country. So that’s actually the advantage of being in Belgium, and what can I say, the big multicultural advantage of being a Belgium maltster, let us say.

Heather Jerred (25:22):

I think it’s really interesting because you are all from very strong historical beer regions and your beer styles for each region are all very different, historically. I think that really speaks to the terroir and again, the history of the country. It’s really cool. Can we speak to what makes malting traditions different in each area? Does anybody have very specific… I know we’re doing floor malting in the Czech Republic, we used to do it at Bairds. Are there different malting traditions for your area than there would be for somebody else in Europe? Let’s start in Belgium.

Mattijs Nuyts (26:01):

Well, actually, we have no big malting techniques or something. So like I told you, we come actually from specialty malting. So in ancient times, medieval times, most of the malting techniques were very, very rough, kilning or drying upon a big open fire, for example. And these were the malts, you have brown or dark beers. So these beers, the caramelized beers like abbey beers, big, sweet, bold beers, especially these beers are actually a remnant of these ancient times. At this point, of course, we use Pilsner malts, of course we use base malts.

(26:48):

It’s 2025, so these techniques, of course, we have them in Belgium. But on the other hand, the specialty malts, we are quite proud and keen of, are mostly the caramel malts and the Special B, because they provide a lot of sugar, they provide a lot of biscuity tones, they provide a lot of color in the beer, so bold and bright. So that’s typical for Belgium. And at Malterie du Château, of course, we are specialized in these kinds of malts. We use techniques of nine days. So we have a malting process of nine days, quite long for malting process. And of course, we are very, very happy with a lot of sugar and a lot of caramel in our malts to provide it to the Belgium beer industries, the Belgium beer heritage to make the bold and sweeter beers maybe.

Brittany Drennan (27:44):

Special B is so popular, at least here in the US. I don’t know about Canada.

Heather Jerred (27:49):

It’s very popular up here. Can you tell us a little bit more about that malt for people that haven’t worked with it before?

Mattijs Nuyts (27:56):

The Special B is actually a malt what is germinated at quite a high temperature, so quite a fast and high start of the malting process. After that, we roast it in a drum. So actually nothing special about it, but it means we-

Heather Jerred (28:19):

Except for the name.

Mattijs Nuyts (28:21):

… [inaudible 00:28:21] sugars. Yeah, except for the name. Yeah, everybody thinks Belgium is very special and very, very, very secret. But actually, it’s quite logic and it’s quite interesting to know. It’s nothing secret about it. But it means actually we are going to caramelize a lot of the sugars in this malt. So we have a very, very biscuity, very caramel-like malt with a very big, bold texture and a very big, bold taste. And that’s actually the Special B. So typical to use in abbey beers and to use in these brown ales, for example.

Heather Jerred (29:03):

Richard, can you speak a little bit about UK malting traditions?

Dr Richard Broadbent (29:07):

Yeah, sure. We used to have a lot of floor maltings, which sadly we don’t operate anymore. I think we gave our last one up, it was about 1999 or 2000, I think we gave up our last floor maltings. But we’ve got a wide range of malting equipment. We have both in Scotland and England producing, brewing, and distilling malts, particularly two of the most modern plants in the UK.

(29:35):

But I think we’ve got one of the oldest operating plants as well in Inverness, where quite unusually we steep, germinate, and kiln in the same boxes. And we’ve actually got 15 boxes in total. So that process takes, I think, eight and a bit days from beginning to end. Yeah, produces very delicate distilling malts of the highest quality. Frankly, in today’s terms, it’s not the most efficient plant that we have, but it produces very good distilling malt.

(30:15):

So we still operate it and we’ve got 10 of the 15 boxes that I mentioned. There are 50 tonnes in size of barley weight going in, which means that we can do very specialist, be that barley varieties or right down to certain farms, will bring us barley for tolling so we can give the toll malt back to the farm for maybe if they’ve got a brewery or distillery or a tie-up with a local distillery, et cetera. So we can be very local with our supply chain as needed. And that’s a fair part of the production throughput through your Inverness plant.

Heather Jerred (31:03):

One of the most popular Bairds malts that we sell over here is the Maris Otter. Can you speak a little bit to that variety and just that malt in general and why it’s so popular?

Dr Richard Broadbent (31:13):

So Bairds has been making Maris Otter malt for I think as long as the barley variety has been grown in the UK, particularly in England. So I think it’s approaching 60 years old now, the variety, which makes it quite outclassed on farm. So we have to pay quite a big premium to get it growing in the UK, but it is still growing by a core loyal farm base. To speak to the variety, it malts really well today. And even in comparison to the most modern varieties, there’s never been an issue with its malting quality. In fact, that really was what has made it stand out against all the other varieties. For as long as it’s been grown, it’s been consistent malt quality and those who used it, for many years, have said that there’s consistent good flavor, particularly in brewing, and have stuck with it.

(32:10):

And many beer brands based their brewing recipe around it for many, many years, and so long as it is growing, then they’re keen to continue to use it. Some people have moved away, but many still are loyal and dedicated to it and it’s something that we continue to produce at our Witham site in England in Essex. So it’s a pleasure to see it growing in the maltings when I go around and it’s a living history lesson, I suppose. Most of our varieties would last maybe five or maximum seven or eight years. To have something that lasted, I think it’s almost 60 years, is an incredible achievement for the variety.

Brittany Drennan (33:03):

So there was a shortage a few years ago. Was it [inaudible 00:33:07] ago?

Heather Jerred (33:06):

Was it a bad crop year?

Brittany Drennan (33:09):

Yeah. Can you speak to what happened with that? I still have customers to this day being like, “Are we good on Maris Otter? Do we have it? Is it going to be okay?” I know that that was a little bit of a shake-up, at least for us over here.

Dr Richard Broadbent (33:25):

Yeah. So it’s not grown in large quantity. Basically, it’s grown on contract. So we are at the mercy of Mother Nature in the UK, and when Mother Nature is not so kind to us, the variety has to do the best it can, and sometimes that means that the yields are affected. And I’m not exactly sure exactly how much Maris Otter is growing, but you can imagine that if enough is grown with a small surplus for the expected demand, and then there’s a crop challenge then and there’s less than eventually everybody needs, then there is no more else to go.

(34:04):

You can’t go anywhere else to buy it to another country, et cetera. So we’re left with what we have, so we try to grow slightly more than we need just on the eventuality that there is a crop challenge. Speaking from Bairds’ point of view, we’re fine for next year, we’re fine for 2026. We’ve got enough barley for our-

Heather Jerred (34:23):

Okay, good.

Brittany Drennan (34:24):

Yeah. Every time you’d hear a collective sigh and [inaudible 00:34:27] right now.

Dr Richard Broadbent (34:30):

Of course, it’s a year to year thing, so Mother Nature will determine how much barley we get from the 2026 harvest as well.

Brittany Drennan (34:36):

Richard, since we still have you, you mentioned you had floor maltings and then moved away from that. Was that just because it is labor-intensive? Was it difficult to operate? Because there’s a large fascination here in the US about floor malts in general.

Dr Richard Broadbent (34:56):

Floor maltings, they’re one extreme of malting technology today. They probably use almost double the amount of energy that a modern malting facility would use. And of course, when energy is expensive, as it has been in the last few years, then that has a huge impact on the malt price and it’s yes, highly labor-intensive. Our typical maltings, we operate maltings [inaudible 00:35:22] maltings on a day-to-day basis with all the other people around the plant for a lot of duties, but for our floor maltings, might be talking three or four times that for the full component staff.

(35:34):

So it’s, yes, everything you mentioned, Brittany, labor-intensive, high on energy. The malt quality is close to today’s quality on the most modern plants. Of course, inevitably, the technology that we have today can ultimately on its best day make better malt quality than you would get from a floor where you’ve got perforated floors in a germination vessel as opposed to laying the barley out on the concrete floors of a floor maltings and turning it regularly by hand or with a machine to help.

(36:08):

So I would say that the quality can be good from a floor maltings, but I would say probably, generally speaking, the modern-day maltings will normally produce better quality. But it does definitely give a different character to the malt, a distinct character and flavor and many people, many brewers still use it in their grist.

Heather Jerred (36:33):

Are there any notable breweries that we may know worldwide that are utilizing Castle malts?

Mattijs Nuyts (36:40):

Actually, we work with a lot of distributors, so we have a lot of countries. Of course, it’s impossible to provide every brewer. We try to get some distributors in every country in the fun part. I don’t really know every brewery who uses our malts. And a few weeks ago, I got an email from the worldwide known craft brewer, BrewDog, to find some quality certificates of our malts. So it was a pleasant surprise, they use malts from Castle.

Heather Jerred (37:20):

What are some notable breweries that are utilizing Bairds?

Dr Richard Broadbent (37:24):

We supply reasonable size to craft in the UK through our distributor Loughran Brewers Select. Probably about 100 or so brewers that we supply through Loughran and we’re into almost all of the big distillers in particular in the UK. So pretty much, if you look at our wall of whiskey, I think almost 30% of the Scottish whiskey market by tonnage, so 30% of the brands that you see on the shelf should have our malt in them roughly. So yeah, we are the largest in the UK, so we have quite a big footprint across the brands.

Brittany Drennan (38:02):

If any of our listeners happen to find themselves near your malthouses, are there tours available or is that something that you can do? They can do? We can do?

Dr Richard Broadbent (38:13):

Yeah, I can speak for the UK. By arrangement, yes, Brittany. Yeah, we do offer the odd tour generally to customers and suppliers. But sure, if there’s an overseas customer brewer, for example, or distiller that’s using our malt and they’re in the area, then sure. Of course, if they can make contact probably initially through the person that they buy them off from-

Heather Jerred (38:40):

Us.

Brittany Drennan (38:41):

Us.

Dr Richard Broadbent (38:43):

And then pass on the details. Yeah. We’ve entertained people all over the globe where they’re passing through. But yeah, it’s generally a pleasure to talk about what we do.

Brittany Drennan (38:55):

My stipulation is that I have to be invited.

Heather Jerred (38:58):

Oh, yeah.

Brittany Drennan (38:58):

Anyway. What about Belgium? What if we’re in Belgium, can we come to Castle?

Mattijs Nuyts (39:02):

Actually, it’s the same story. We’re not open for public tours or for tourist tours, so we don’t have an-

Brittany Drennan (39:03):

Of course.

Mattijs Nuyts (39:10):

… actual visitor center. But indeed on demand of clients or suppliers or, I don’t know what, they can of course get a tour through the maltery. So very keen and very proud of our old maltery. So we still have wooden equipment, for example. If you’re a or a brewer and you’re interested in our malts, very welcome.

Heather Jerred (39:34):

So Oktoberfest is coming up. I don’t know how big it is in your areas. Are there big celebrations for Oktoberfest in the UK and in Belgium?

Dr Richard Broadbent (39:45):

In the UK, there are small pockets of Oktoberfest-like celebrations, yes. But a tiny, tiny representation of what happens in Germany in a few weeks’ time.

Brittany Drennan (39:59):

It’s interesting here, every brewery has their own little Oktoberfest party. I feel like every brewery is starting to brew their Oktoberfest beer earlier and earlier every year. I feel like I saw it being packaged in July this year. We have, whether it’s a block party, but it is a brewery-specific party. I think everybody brews on Oktoberfest. It’s kind of a cultural, us wanting a little bit of Germany here.

Heather Jerred (40:27):

Is it celebrated in Belgium at all?

Mattijs Nuyts (40:29):

No, it’s very commercial in Belgium. We have a totally different beer tradition, although it’s interesting to see the similarities between Germany and Belgium. Probably you know and listeners know, Oktoberfest is actually an ancient start of a new brewing season because they couldn’t brew in summer. It was too hot and too warm and too much bacteria. I don’t know what’s flying around.

Heather Jerred (40:54):

Yeah, in the air.

Mattijs Nuyts (40:56):

That’s the reason why actually breweries started actually in October because the temperatures went down. And in Belgium we have something similar. Actually, the Belgian Beer Weekend is the first weekend of September. One of the most important weekends, I think, for the Belgian brewers and is also the start of the new brewing season in Belgium. We have a very specific beer style, it’s lambic or gueuze.

(41:18):

Also, lambic brewers can start again with brewing because they have open fermentation and they start again in October. So a little bit of similarities as Germany, but in Belgium, we don’t have the celebration like they do in Bavaria. No.

Heather Jerred (41:34):

Is there any of your malts that you would recommend for, say, making an Oktoberfest-style beer?

Mattijs Nuyts (41:39):

That’s a very good question. I don’t have the-

Heather Jerred (41:42):

No, that’s fine.

Mattijs Nuyts (41:45):

… knowledge right now, but-

Brittany Drennan (41:46):

[inaudible 00:41:46].

Heather Jerred (41:46):

That was not on the list.

Mattijs Nuyts (41:48):

No. But about making fest beers, I think it’s a little bit Munich malt or Vienna malt or something. They use a lot of Pilsner malts, so I don’t have a very original answer for that.

Heather Jerred (42:01):

That’s totally fine. Richard, do you have anything in the portfolio that you would suggest for making fest beer?

Dr Richard Broadbent (42:07):

We have Pilsner malts, as you say, and we still do a little bit of Munich, I think. So a very, very small amount of our portfolio, not a recipe that I have to hand to help out the listeners.

Heather Jerred (42:21):

Okay. The key question, and we like to ask a lot of people that come on the podcast this, if you can have one beer or we could say drink, because we-

Brittany Drennan (42:28):

I was going to say, we’re having a happy hour, we’re coming to you, we’re doing happy hour.

Heather Jerred (42:34):

What are you ordering?

Brittany Drennan (42:36):

Yeah. Richard, are you grabbing a whiskey or are you grabbing a beer?

Dr Richard Broadbent (42:40):

I’m going to start with beer and I might migrate to whiskey. It depends how long that happy hour lasts. So in the UK we have what’s called real ale. So that’s cask-conditioned ale.

Heather Jerred (42:53):

Cask-conditioned.

Dr Richard Broadbent (42:54):

Yeah, exactly. With a bit of yeast in the bottom. Well, I know I live in Essex, so the south of England would probably be where I reach for. There’s so many good ones. Depending on where I am, I’d probably try and pick something local to where I am. So it depends where the happy hour is.

Heather Jerred (43:12):

Are you going to go an abbey ale or a wild ferment? Or what are you going to start with?

Mattijs Nuyts (43:17):

Well, in Belgium, it’s happy hour. So if I going to go for a Trappist ale or a tripel, for example-

Heather Jerred (43:17):

You’re going to start with a tripel?

Mattijs Nuyts (43:27):

I need to choose something lighter, I will go for a Saison, I think.

Brittany Drennan (43:27):

Awesome.

Heather Jerred (43:30):

We’ve been talking about Saisons a lot lately and just how it’s so underrepresented in North America.

Brittany Drennan (43:36):

Here.

Heather Jerred (43:37):

Yeah. And people just love making them. I know brewers love making them.

Brittany Drennan (43:37):

Oh, yeah.

Heather Jerred (43:41):

They just don’t sell as well, and I’m like, “We need to work on this because I love a good Saison.”

Brittany Drennan (43:47):

Yeah, we’ve got to educate the beer community of drinkers here on how-

Heather Jerred (43:47):

More Saisons.

Brittany Drennan (43:52):

… lovely and refreshing a Saison is.

Heather Jerred (43:56):

And it’s the ultimate food pairing beer. It goes with everything. At least that’s what they taught me in my Cicerone. Well, we know we’re probably getting later in everybody’s day, so we can maybe let you guys get home for dinner.

Brittany Drennan (44:09):

Sorry about that. Appreciate y’all.

Heather Jerred (44:12):

Brittany and I are going to start our day. Thank you all so much for joining us and just chatting about our European varieties. It’s always fun for our customers here to get to hear from you all. So we will chat with everybody again. Thank you so much for joining us.