It’s November…

…And so it is the beginning of the new malting season, & a step change at Warminster Maltings on different fronts. First of all The Good News: as we say farewell to the 2021 crop barleys, we set about the fresh 2022 crop. And what a crop we have from this latest harvest – the quality is so good, I struggle to recall when we last had barleys as good as these.

We are talking about bold and heavy barley grains, less than 12% moisture (very safe in store), grain nitrogen at the perfect mid point, 1.50 – 1.60%, and bursting with germinative energy. These barleys are absolutely designed to make ‘tip top’ quality malt!

But we have to be careful. Our maltsters describe these barleys as almost ‘wild’, they have so much “get up and go”. But, of course, this is where our hand made process comes into its own. Each batch of barley-to-malt, individually and skillfully managed, to achieve optimum performance.

Then, The Not So Good News: we have to recalculate our Price List.

The outset of the War in Ukraine had an immediate and direct impact on the world’s grain markets, very quickly pushing up prices by over £150.00 per tonne. Markets have eased back a little since, 43 but they sit poised on a knife edge, dependant on the ‘safe corridor for shipping’ into the Black Sea. Every week there is debate about whether Mr Putin will prevent this, and at the time of writing, he is ‘suspending’ shipments, although they continue to sail.

So, even at £100.00 per tonne more for barley than last year, malt prices have to go up by £125.00 per tonne, and that is before the cost of energy, transport and wages are taken into consideration. It appears to be no secret that some maltsters are facing a five fold increase in their energy costs, which, if they seek to pass all of that on, will equate to an additional substantial increase in the price of their malt. This is all very heady stuff!

But we should try and put this all into context. For every £100.00 per tonne on the malt price, that is only approximately 1p on a pint of beer. That is nothing compared to the increase in beer prices much talked about – 50p per pint, or even the £7.00 pint! I am sure the latter can all be justified, but all I want to say is: don’t blame the maltster! Our contribution to this inflation is only a small fraction of the total. And don’t blame the farmer either, in this country he has absolutely no influence over world grain prices. We are all victims of globalisation, a great concept, that is until events/someone puts a spoke in the wheel!

Mentioned in Dispatches

Our Brewer customers are regularly and deservedly picking up Awards for their beers, both from regional competitions and those held on the international stage. If we rarely choose to record these in this Newsletter, it is not because we do not acknowledge their achievements, we do, and we are proud of them. But it would become an endless list, month after month, which is not the intention of this editorial.

Even so, and we are not complaining, we rarely, if ever, get a mention, let alone any credit, in the publicity that surrounds these Awards. So when we do, that has to be a very good reason for singling the achievement.

However, the occasion I refer to, is not an Award for beer, but a particularly prestigious Award, for a loaf of bread!

The Lovingly Artisan Bakery in Kendal, Cumbria, has just won the ‘Best Speciality Bread Product’ in the Baking Industry Awards. They scooped this trophy with their Malted Barley Sourdough Tin Loaf (you can order it online).

Their press release states

“…we’re so proud of our Malted Barley loaf. It’s made using malted brewers’ barley from Warminster Maltings, the oldest traditional Maltings in England – a super ingredient that takes the flavour, texture and goodness of this hard-working hero bread up to 11”.

“A super ingredient” indeed! Thank-you Aidan Monks and Catherine Connor at Lovingly Artisan Bakery for those generous words. I am quoting their words in the hope that they may transmit
across to some in the brewing sector.

Warminster Town F.C.

“The Malt-Men” have new strip this year, although this photograph only shows one change, the pale blue ‘away’ shirts. On the backs of each shirt, across their shoulders, the words “Malt-Stars’ has been added, but too small to easily read from the touch line. That is not what I envisaged when I requested this, but perhaps it is as well. The press quote “The Malt-Men”, an unexpected consequence of our sponsorship deal with the club, and we are delighted with that.

The first team had an inauspicious start to the season, having lost several of last season’s star players in “the transfer season”! However, they have now regrouped, and are back into winning form again, winning 19 points from 10 matches, David Parry, chairman, advises me. They are now 13th in the league, with two games in hand against most of those teams ahead of them. So, there is a very good chance they will be chasing the top spots by the New Year.

Even more special, on 22nd October, the Ladies Team won their FA Cup tie against Bristol Rovers. That’s special! It occurs to me we need to somehow persuade the local Press to dub the Ladies as “The Malt-Stars”, then I would know exactly how to redesign next year’s strip.

Meanwhile, if you live locally, and you are into football, do try and wend your way up Weymouth Street on a Saturday afternoon, and support our footballers. They are doing a great job in putting our town on the map, a great success story, particularly amid what appears to be so much failure elsewhere in the world.

Robin Appel

Craft Beer in Jeopardy?

We began this year with renewed optimism. We thought we were at last “out of the wood”, & we could look forward to a really busy 12 months, and perhaps even make a profit. Two months in and we were not even sure if we had a future at all.

Our initial worst fears were quite different from the challenges that have since beset us. The old adage “when times are good, people drink a little; when times are bad, they drink a little more” no longer seems to apply. It now appears “…when times are bad, people stop drinking!”

It isn’t all about the cost of utilities, there are also staff shortages, and the increasing cost of both food and beer, which all contribute to this demise. But I want to leap in here and quickly point out that the increase in the cost of beer – according to the Office of National Statistics, so far up 13 pence per pint this year – is far more about the cost of utilities, wages, packaging, and distribution, than it is about the price of malt. Yes, barley prices are sharply up again this harvest, and malt prices will have to follow, but this increase on its own will only add between one and two pence per pint!

But it does not stop there. CF Industries have recently announced that they are closing down their Billingham fertiliser plant, a serious by-product of which is Carbon Dioxide, necessary for keg beer production. This only adds to the woes we face across the U.K. brewing landscape. The British Beer & Pub Association (BBPA) is calling for the government to intervene, but I doubt they will get much response.

Meanwhile, our weekly sales of malt have begun to reflect all this. Our customers are all still there, and they are all still brewing, but a significant number of them are not brewing quite as much as they would like to.

As I wrote to one, who emailed me on this subject last week, we all have to get through this, as best we can. There is a very good reason why, because the “sunnier uplands” will always be there another day.

Whisky Galorious!

 Swinging from “uplands” to the Highlands, and from beer to ‘Scotch’, you may have recently read the story about the cask of ‘single malt’ whisky made by the Ardbeg distillery on Islay, distilled and laid down in 1975, and auctioned a few weeks ago. It sold for a staggering £16m., putting the value of a single bottle, of a total of 440 bottles, at £36,000 each! (The previous record price for a cask of single malt was just £1m.).

This would never benefit me, I’m too old, but for the future posterity of the Maltings, I cannot help concluding that this would not be an unreasonable thing to do. I am thinking about it!

But I deliberately relate this story to point out, it is not all bad news at the moment.

Customers to the Maltings.

One standout feature of this year at the Maltings has to be the number of customers who have requested to visit us. We have received whole teams from both Breweries and Distilleries, and we are due to carry on, hosting both disciplines in this month of September.

I really welcome this because these are opportunities to learn from each other. I am neither a trained Brewer, or a Distiller, but I do know a little bit about barley and malt, and when I am talking with customers it is sometimes surprising what more we both discover we can achieve together.

I attach a photograph of our most recent guests, Brasserie La Boyere, from France. Peter Smith (on the left) standing alongside me with his father Bill (on the right), are both English, but Peter has now made France his home. Bill has to be our oldest visitor, by far, he is 101 years old! You would never have thought it, he made it all around the Malt floors, almost unaided, and continuously fired all the right questions at me, the whole way round.

After a couple of hours of interrogation and discovery, we loaded up the Smithmobile with 10 bags of our finest Maris Otter malt and pointed the way to the Portsmouth ferry.

Now then, methinks, if I should make it to 101 years old, that “consequential” clause in the Distillers Malt supply contract, might benefit me, after all!

 PLEASE: Do what you can to save our pubs!

Robin Appel

Full of Eastern Promise

Restoration Progress

Most Warminster people are very much aware of a tall and expansive plastic canopy that enshrouds one corner of our Maltings, but it is not easy to see from the road exactly what is going on underneath. After more than 6 months of this project, they might even ask if anything is going on at all!

Well, work is progressing, albeit slowly. Like so many other industry sectors, we are hampered by the lack of available raw materials, and a lack of skilled labour in the construction industry, most of whom are struggling with the huge backlog of work caused by 2 years of ‘lockdowns’.

However, by way of an update, I can advise you the Pound Street elevation has had most of its roof refurbished, that was completed first. The more complex work involves the dismantling, and now the reconstruction, of the two kilns. We are on the brick and stonework at the moment, much of the second-floor elevations requiring a complete rebuild.

We are advised the work will almost certainly stretch well into the winter, but hopefully before Christmas we will be uncovering the almost final if not completed works. But, for the time being, although it may not look like it, it is work in progress. We are grateful to our contractors, Chalke Valley Roofing, who ensure there are craftsmen on site every working day. I might describe it as gentle but steady progress!

New Staff

 We pride ourselves that we have a very low turnover of staff at the Maltings, three current members being part of the original team that was already here when I arrived in 2001. So, it is unusual for us to talk about new staff, let alone three new staff since my last Newsletter. However, two of them are additional members to the team.

Lisa Conduit

Complimentary to these new appointments, I have introduced an additional formal training programme for all our staff, which sets out to explain in greater detail the whole process of malting, from barley production on the farm, a much more detailed insight into the separate procedures in the malthouse and including an explanation of all the grades of malt we produce, and for whom they are intended.

My first two ‘students’ have been Nathan Ball and Nic Corper, both are established ‘hands on’ maltsters, but both keen to gain a better and wider understanding of the tasks they perform each day. My weekly tutorials have one more session to go, after which I will turn the procedure around, and invite Nathan and Nick to review and discuss each topic with me, to ensure they have gained something of a better grasp of the intricacies of malting practice. It is all about encouraging a shared ownership of everything we do at the Maltings, and a shared commitment to perfection. If this programme has proved successful, Jake, Brandon, and Lisa will be invited to follow suit.

Harvest

Meanwhile, harvest is fast approaching. The barleys all look good in the field, but can we safely gather them in? I will let you know next time.