Founded in 2013, the Craft Maltsters Guild celebrated its 10th birthday this year and, while this past week was only the 6th annual Craft Malt Conference, it was a pretty special one. It was the first in-person conference since 2020, which means a lot of new craft maltsters and new people to this community are meeting each other for the first time.

Location

Having a conference in March in Maine always meant the chance of a classic Nor Easter. The snow came on Tuesday, the day before many of the attendees were arriving, which gave us a lovely winter welcome.

It was our first time in Portland and exploring the city allowed us to fully understand why the conference was here. Not only was it very walkable, but the craft malt community celebrated the occasion and let the world know it is alive and well! From hearing about commitments from some of the bigger breweries in the region to a tour of Blue Ox Malthouse, craft malt is crushing it in Maine.

The Benefits of Being Together

Craft malting is an emerging industry, and there are a lot of ways to make malt and even more ways to run a malting company. Being in the same room as other maltsters going through the same growing pains allowed us to share how we are tackling problems, and learn from others who may approach and innovate in our field differently. We were also able to build relationships with others, making picking up the phone that much easier when there are questions.

Learning and talking to others, attending seminars, and touring facilities are inspirational ways to learn.

3 Things we Learned

Distilling is an untapped market for many craft maltsters. With the solidification of the new American Single Malt category by the TTB coming this summer, craft maltsters will have a new opportunity to get malt into new products.

Terroir is still a big topic of conversation. The pursuit of terrier is one way to develop a unique flavor, pull on that lever to shift your flavor profile. This may mean malthouse flavor or growing region or even breeding region. There is a lot to explore here still!

The general public still has a gap in their knowledge around what malt is. Deepening collaboration between maltsters and brewers/distillers will help with filling in that gap. As maltsters we need to do a better job of making it easy for our customers to tell that story as well. We plan on becoming a better resource in the future!

Where Craft Malt is Heading

Craft malt is still a young part of a heavily commodified industry. As people learn how to run this type of company as well as how to grow to the scale it allows them to support their communities. We’ll need to see a combination of resources like educating each other all the way to sharing silo space or collaborating on barley breeding research. There will have to be some creative ways to stay nimble, while being able to punch above our weight class and grow to a sustainable scale.

Craft malt is here to stay!