At the end of each year, we take some time to reflect on where we started the year and what we accomplished as a company. 2021 was a year of adaptation and growth at Skagit Valley Malting. We scaled back a lot in 2020, so 2021 was spent playing catchup, increasing our production, and planning for the future.

Here are a selection of things we accomplished this year and how they will impact us and our customers for next year:

• Marketing

  • We launched a series of social media content on the importance of reading a COA and what to pay attention to.

  • Created a list of homebrewer resources, including some recipes!

  • We updated our website to include a better way of curating grain varieties and pairing them with beer styles.

  • We added “Customer Appreciation Thursdays” as a way to highlight our customers and involve our sales team in our marketing efforts. We highlighted over 50 of our customers in this weekly social media post.

    • If you’re brewing with us, make sure to talk about it. That allows us to better help promote your beers to our team and fans!

• New Products

  • We launched 4 new specialty products - Molasses Malt, Xtra Dark Munich, Caramel Millet, and Malted Rye.

  • We’ll be launching even more new products in 2022 as we continue our Custom Batches and Experimental Malts.

• New Technology

  • We developed a new peating process that drives a 4x higher phenol number in 1/4 of the time than we had been able to get in the past!

  • Distillers wanting to increase their usage of Washington Peated Malt can now get a better product!

  • We’ve designed plans for a new expansion in 2022-2023 which will allow our production to increase and roll out a new design for our machines.

• Harvest

  • This was our 10th harvest! We harvested 2 new varieties of barley and are excited to see what you do with Laureate and Opera in 2022!

  • Our crop weathered the heat wave nicely and should provide a solid barley supply through 2022.

What are we looking at for next year?

We have positioned ourselves to continue our growth and exploration with new products and patented malting innovations. As we continue growth, we’ll be able to bring on new employees to help serve our customers and dive deeper into the impact we have on our local farmers and greater grain economy. We’ll be exploring and highlighting our terroir and products in more meaningful ways. We are officially back on track and are looking forward to working with you in the new year.

Cheers!