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

Edition 44: Friends of warminster Maltings

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

2023 Together!

I would like to begin on behalf of all the team at Warminster Maltings, by sending you our Very Best Wishes for the New Year!

In particular to all our customers, because, based on all the most recent reports published and broadcast, we are facing a particularly difficult start to the next 12 months. But, at Warminster Maltings, we will not be fazed by this, and we most sincerely hope neither will you.

However, if there is anything we can do to help along the way, please do not hesitate to ask. Of course, we are not bankers, but if you would like to bring your team, or even customers, to visit our Maltings, we will be more than happy to oblige. Or if we can help with editorial, or website material/graphics, you only have to ask. Or any other ideas that you might have, just pick up the telephone.

Together, we can overcome the ‘headwinds’ we keep being reminded of, and perhaps more easily than it may at first seem.

Quite the Best Value Malt that Money Can Buy!

At the end of November we introduced our 2023 Price List to all of our customers. For the second year in a row this was all about a significant price increase, once again caused by the inflation in world grain markets, this time triggered by the war in Ukraine.

It amounted to a price increase for most of our customers of 10-12%. But it seems this increase is quite modest when compared to the increases broadcast by our very much bigger competitors, who have announced price rises that appear to range from 28-40%! These more substantial price increases are a direct result of huge rises in the cost of energy, something that so far has had only a minimal impact at Warminster Maltings. What this all adds up to is, we, whose prices are normally a bit more expensive than our competitors, now appear to compete directly ‘head to head’ with the giants of the industry!

So this is a message to all those brewers who would prefer, but think they cannot afford, ‘floor made’ malt. All of a sudden, now you can.

There is no question, ‘floor made’ malt is better than pneumatic production. ‘Floor made’ stretches back centuries, and the new technology which has succeeded it was never about an improvement in quality, it was really all about, and just about, the economics.

Back at the end of the 19th century when the malting industry first began experimenting with alternative methods to ‘floor malting’, both revolving drums and air conditioned boxes, the then leading maltsters concluded the alternative methods “could not produce the high quality malt demanded by brewers”. So they subsequently went back to building even larger and more spectacular ‘floor’ Maltings. Witness Robert Free’s grand Malthouse on the quayside at Mistley in Essex (one of seven in the town, now converted to flats), and Bass, the brewer, whose ‘floor Maltings’ at Sleaford, Lincolnshire, completed in 1906, was in a class of its own – eight blocks of Malt floors, each six stories high, with a 1000 ft frontage. Testimony to all this, the last floor Maltings to be built in Britain was as late as 1952, in Grantham, almost 100 years after Warminster Maltings.

The beginning of the end of large scale ‘floor made’ malt was the early 1960’s, led by Associated British Maltsters (ABM) who began building their cathedral-like pneumatic Maltings across the southern half of England. This, of course, all coincided with the industrialisation of food and drink and the arrival of the supermarket. Need I say more?

Leading U.K. ‘Floor Maltster’, 1961 advertising campaign.

Will anyone build a new floor Maltings today? I very much doubt it. Warminster is one of only three still operating in England, and there are six more in Scotland, all of those north of the border being part of long established distilleries, producing some of the finest ‘single malts’!

So there you have it. Warminster Malt is not only a very exclusive product, it is also a unique opportunity to experience probably “the best brewing malt that money can buy”!

The Changing Face of the High Street

Analysis revealed by the BBC at the beginning of December, has highlighted that over the two years of Covid lockdowns, there were marked changes to the face of the British High Street.

As we have all witnessed, banks and department stores have all but disappeared, but instead beauty salons and tattoo parlours, along with more places to eat and drink, have quietly crept in. What it amounts to is the High Street is transforming itself from a place to buy things into a place to, how shall I put it, to entertain or be entertained?

But what stands out in this report for me, based on data from the Ordnance Survey, post Covid there are now “700 more pubs and bars” on our High Streets than there were before, along with cafes, tea rooms and fast-food outlets. The evidence to support this in Warminster is the reopening of two pubs in the town centre, both of which had been shut for most of the last 3 years.

All we ever read about is the pubs that are closing; a lot of this publicity deliberately highlighted and targeted at the government by industry bodies lobbying for support. So it is refreshing to see another side of the story. Of course, this news may be of little consolation to the village pub which is struggling, but on the other hand, perhaps therein there lies a message.

But this report should be good news for our Brewer customers. Invariably, as one door closes another one opens!

Slow Progress

Work on our final restoration project is painfully slow, simply because the small team of carpenters and joiners we require at the present stage are only able to give us 2-3 days work each week. This team has come to our rescue when the original contractors walked out after just two days – they either decided they had ‘bitten off more than they could chew’, or they were lured away by more lucrative rewards elsewhere. So our present team kindly shoe-horned us into other existing commitments, and we are extremely grateful to them.

More than that, studying the workmanship going into our kiln structures, I believe that, once again, fate has served us particularly well. This woodwork is quite magnificent, and a true replica of what we believe was the original structure, so as authentic as we can make it.

There is no intention of firing up these kilns another day, we do not have the infrastructure to load, or unload them, or the personnel to operate them. Besides, anthracite fired Malt kilns pose a fire risk to the whole Maltings structure. It was back in 1924 when more than half the Maltings complex was destroyed by a fire that was almost certainly precipitated by one of these kilns malfunctioning. It was a common occurrence across the whole of the industry at the time. Our then proprietor, Dr Beaven, was unfazed by events, and immediately set about rebuilding. A similar setback today would probably have a very different outcome imposed upon us, sat, as we are now, right in the middle of a residential area!

Kiln No.3

Finally…

…a great picture taken just before Christmas by one of our customers, Corinium Ales at Cirencester. The sledge is their own, I am not aware our hauliers are carrying them, yet.

A Very Happy New Year to You All.

Robin Appel

Edition 43: friends of Warminster maltings

by The Maltstar | Nov 8, 2022 | Malt-stars News

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

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