Edition 47: friends of Warminster maltings

by The Maltstar | Jul 11, 2023 | Malt-stars News

Continuous Improvement

The key word in the title is “Continuous”, but you’ll appreciate for the most part, we’re not talking about the process of malting just the ancillary stuff. This time it is a brand-new Packing Line for our 25kgs malt sacks, which take up most of our weekly output.

One of the challenges of operating an old-fashioned process like ours is that the method and design of the buildings were originally designed around ‘man handling’. And when it comes to containers, I am talking about ‘man handling’ of much heavier weights than anything we are allowed to handle today. When I began in the business, a lot of years ago, the barley/malt sack content was 100kgs. Today, it is considerably less, it is only 25kgs. But regardless of this, the officers from ‘Health & Safety’ are never happy about anything that involves physical lifting of any sort.

Our new Packing Line is a serious step up from its predecessor, but quite deliberately not fully automated, because most of our malt deliveries are very bespoke orders, 40x25kgs sacks on a single pallet (1 tonne) but made up of four different malts which have to be individually hand selected and packed. But our new machine picks up empty sacks, feeds them individually to a single malt supply, weighs, stitches and labels the sacks, and drops them onto a short conveyor that feeds the pallet. For most pallets this is in the order of 36x25kgs of a base malt, the other 4x25kgs being different specialist malts, each individually added as the pallet is completed. I should point out that whilst this new kit free’s up one pair of hands to do other things, no-one has been made redundant.

We had planned to shut down the Pack House for just over a week in June, and hoped that with careful management, and the kind co-operation of many of our customers, business would carry on as usual. Largely it did, but installation of the new machine hasn’t been without issue, and we were perhaps a bit too ambitious in expecting that this high tech bit of kit would be fully operational in the timeframe we had set.

However, despite the ‘teething problems’, we have succeeded in maintaining our malt supply. Enormous thanks to our customers for their understanding and support, and to our wonderful maltsters who have gone above and beyond to ensure the malt still went out the door.

Warminster Maltings - Traditional English Floor Malt

This is the opportunity to point out that our latest 25kg sacks are now fully recyclable – they no longer need the plastic liner. This has been a concern of several of our customers for a little while, and our suppliers have now been able to respond. Another small step towards saving our planet, but not the last on our agenda, when circumstances allow.

Teas in the Garden

On June 14th, after a 3-year enforced sabbatical, our garden was once again open to the public for a traditional cream tea, prepared and served by our very own Pat Whitty. The sun shone, and a steady stream of guests stepped through our gate, including, I am delighted to say, a number of our former regulars.

We will continue this offering throughout the summer, on the second Wednesday afternoon of each month, July, August and September. It is our way of trying to share our beautiful Maltings with our neighbours.

For those who would like a tour of the Maltings another day, we will be part of Warminster town’s Heritage Weekend programme on 15th and 16th September. We have provisionally reserved two tours for Friday 15th September, one in the morning, and one in the afternoon. Further tours on Saturday will depend on the level of demand. Friday will always be the better day, when maltsters will be active across the floors, using our 100 year old implements to perfect their craft. It is a very special and unique experience, which, I’m afraid, you have to travel to Scotland to see anywhere else.

The Crown of Malts

We would, of course, describe our malts as ‘The Crown of all Malts’, but Lisa Conduit, who helps me to compile and mail this Newsletter, created this “Crown of Malts” just in time for the Coronation in May, but too late for my last edition. Lisa did ‘publish’ her Crown on social media, but if you missed that, I reproduce it here.

I am quite certain Lisa has now started something that we might see more of another day. Nothing immediately springs to mind, as I write, but I am sure something or some event will precipitate further examples of malt as art. Watch this space.

Robin Appel

Edition 46: Friends of Warminster Maltings

by The Maltstar | May 3, 2023 | Malt-stars News

Brewing Resilience

We continue to read in the press, or on our phones, the fragile state of our hospitality industry. Pub closures making the headlines, and industry bodies relentlessly plead with government to intervene.

However, data released in mid-April by SIBA (Society of Independent Brewers) underlined the resilience of the U.K. Craft Brewing sector. In the first quarter of 2023 (Jan-Mar), there was a net loss of just four breweries, out of a total of 1,824 recorded U.K. brewing companies. To put this into proper context, we are talking about no more than 13 Craft Brewery closures, counterbalanced by 9 openings. In the face of a reported loss of 150 pubs in the same period, this says a lot about the appeal of Craft Beer compared to the bland brands of the multinationals!

At Warminster, we can endorse these findings. All of our ‘active’ accounts on our database are ordering malt from us, but perhaps not quite as much as we would expect, or quite as often. But all our customers are continuing to forge ahead.

However, against our current shortfall, we continue to open new accounts, and it is helping to make up the difference. We are talking about new accounts with established breweries who have formerly bought their malt elsewhere, as well as a number of ‘renewed’ accounts for breweries who have decided to come back to us. In all these cases, the motivation for originally by-passing us, or leaving us, was the price of the malt. We know this because they have told us so. But I think I can confidently claim in all these cases, the motivation for turning to us, or returning to us, now, is the quality of the malt!

How satisfying this all is. I have been “banging on” about the importance of the quality of malt forever! Malt is not widgets! Malt is not a very standard product from a very standard production line. It is far, far more sophisticated than that!

Malt is the most important brewing ingredient, and the malting process is just as magical as any other part of the brewing cycle. The finest malting barleys in the world are grown on our own doorstep, and therein perhaps lies the problem. Both the barleys, and dare I say the malt, are sometimes taken far too much for granted. But surely, the last 14 months have probably warned us, if we are to protect our resilience, perhaps we all need to be a little more focused on safeguarding our most valuable raw material?

MaltingsFest 2023

The biggest beer festival in the south-west returned to Osborne Park, Newton Abbott, Devon for the 20th – 23rd April, with Warminster Maltings as the main sponsor. And our brewing customers were not only out in force, but they were also proving themselves to be a force to be reckoned with!

In the beer competition which preceded the festival proper, Warminster Maltings’ customers scooped all of 40 of the 89 gongs awarded (gold, silver and bronze medals), with the biggest individual haul going to Padstow Brewery in Cornwall, who collected no less than 7 medals; followed, in second place, by Utopian Brewery in Devon, collecting a total of 5. Although we like to think our malt has something to do with this, we would like to congratulate those two brewing teams in particular for completing the process we started so distinctively well.

Our very own Leam Moulder presenting Padstow Brewing Co

Teas in the Garden

Our garden has looked spectacular throughout the second half of April, with an amazing display of tulips in particular. Not only that, ceanothus shrubs are now bursting with buds, the roses are looking very promising, and our lawn has come through the winter in very fine fettle.

We agonised over it last year but were still nervous about proceeding with gatherings at the Maltings. But this year we said “enough is enough” we are going to try and go ahead and re-establish our ‘Teas in the Garden’ events for the months of June to September.

We will continue as we left off, the second Wednesday afternoon of each month, 2-4pm.

Homemade scones and cakes, all made by our very own Pat Whitty, served on bone china, to create that old fashioned feel when an afternoon tea was one of the three main meals a day.

If you live locally, or are visiting Warminster, do come along. As long as it’s not raining, we will do everything we can to make the experience well worth your while.

Robin Appel

Edition 45: Friends of warminster Maltings

by The Maltstar | Mar 5, 2023 | Malt-stars News

The Power of the Pen…

We have experienced a resounding response to my last Newsletter, both customers and potential customers visiting the maltings, which did much to cheer up the dark months of January/February.

Also, my suggestion that Warminster Malt is now a lot more affordable (when put up against our competitors), might be part of the reason why we have gained more than 20 new customers over the last 2 months. So, we are much delighted about all this. More than that, our malt sales over the same period echo those recent reports in The Morning Advertiser: they have been quite a bit better than expected. If the year can continue as it has begun, I shall have no fears about facing our new bank manager (new manager, same bank) whose visit is now overdue.

“I tried to write something very wordy that explains how walking around Warminster Maltings made me feel but I couldn’t really… It makes me sad because there are so few places like it left.

I’m infinitely grateful to people like Robin Appel and everyone who’s kept it alive for over 150 years so that we can enjoy, as brewers and drinkers, the fruits of their labour”

High Spirits

The recent news that Scotch Whisky exports achieved 37% growth in 2022, has to be good news for English Whisky as well. From what I can see, the market for whisky seems to have no limits, either to the price that older vintages can command, as well as the global demand for “the water of life”!

Within our list of 20 plus new customers, there are two English distilleries planning to make whisky, and, interestingly, they are only a few miles apart from each other. Not only that, they are just a few miles away from two more of our distilling customers, both of whom are well established in the English Whisky market. It would be possible to visit all four of them within a day, although, as I understand it, only two of them are geared up to do formal tours. Once upon a time I used to say there is probably a Craft Brewery within 10 miles of most people, in a minute there could be a distillery as well!

This increase in the visibility of beer and whisky production all around the U.K. should come as no surprise. The over industrialisation of food and drink is beginning to get its “come uppance”! But it is more than that.

Across England, we grow the finest malting barley in the world. Instead of exporting this raw barley, or even exporting the barley as malt, it makes even more sense to add as much value as possible here at home and produce the final beverages for export instead. Of course, there is nothing new about this: that famous and now international beer style, India Pale Ale (IPA), was originally created in 18th century London. Designed as a beer that could survive the challenging sea voyage to India, it eventually became the making of a number of English breweries, including Bass, over the next 100 years, all supplying the export market to the Indian subcontinent.

So, as they say, what goes around, eventually comes around! What is more, guess where one of the biggest export opportunities for whisky is? You are right, it’s India, …again!

MaltingsFest 2023

April 20th – 22nd 2023

Warminster Maltings is once more the lead sponsor of the biggest beer festival in the south west, due to be held at its regular venue, Osborne Park, Newton Abbott, Devon. This event, organised by SIBA, the Society of Independent Brewers, first began more than 20 years ago, when it was held inside Tuckers Maltings which sits alongside the park. Sadly, the maltings closed its doors 5 years ago, so the beer festival then had to resort to going under canvas. It used to be a great opportunity for us to meet our customers – on the first day, all the brewery principals, and their head brewers, were all in attendance. But that was not the case last year, when the event re-opened after 2 years of enforced absence. Looking back, perhaps this absenteeism should not have been a surprise: staff shortages, increased costs pitched against reduced sales, all prevented brewers from deserting their breweries, albeit their beers were all present and correct. So why do we continue as the lead sponsor?

MaltingsFest is a great opportunity for our customers to showcase their beers to a much wider audience than the regular week-to-week outlets. There is also a beer competition on Day 1, which awards Gold, Silver and Bronze certificates, and which every Brewer is very happy to receive, and then shouts about in order to promote sales. These are the reasons we sponsor this event, to ensure its continuity, which in turn, we hope, helps to sell more beer. However, we have suggested, now that the event is held entirely under canvas, that it might perhaps consider occasionally staging MaltingsFest at Warminster, where it could, once again, be in the vicinity of a working maltings. But the jury seems to be out on this. We will keep pressing.

CHAMPIONS!

Warminster Town Ladies FC did themselves, and us as their sponsors, incredibly proud last week when they became the CHAMPIONS OF WILTSHIRE!

An excellently played game against Royal Wootton Bassett finished 3-0 to our ladies. Congratulations to the team!

Wiltshire County FA Women’s Cup 2023 Winners

…the Force of Advertising.

Our latest advertising campaign has just gone ‘live’ (the Spring edition of the ‘SIBA Independent Brewer’ journal).

“Go West” – and yes, I will admit it has been partially influenced by the 1993 recording by The Pet Shop Boys – is designed to not only highlight our lonely status as the only Maltings in the west of the country, but, more importantly, that we are sat where the best barleys now come from. Thanks to climate change, the eastern counties, where all our competitors are based, is getting drier and drier, and it is impacting on the quality of the barley over there! A lot of the grains are getting leaner, which can compromise extract.

Of course, our competitors can reach out and buy more barley from the west, but for customers in the west, all this does is add more and more ‘food miles’ to their malt supply. So we hope those that put sustainability at the top of their agenda might begin to recognise this. I do not expect we at Warminster can help all of them, but we will do our best.

Please form an orderly queue.

Robin Appel

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