Heritage Varieties of Barley. 

It is widely accepted that Heritage Varieties of barley are those introduced to farmers between 1905 and 1965. 1905 is the year of Plumage Archer, the first genetically true variety of barley in the world, bred by E.S.Beaven in Warminster. 1965 is the year of Maris Otter, bred by Dr Bell at The Plant Breeding Institute at Cambridge. Maris Otter is only the third generation of modern English barleys, a direct descendent of Plumage Archer.

All varieties of barley before 1905 are classified as “landrace”, effectively selections from the wild, made randomly by interested parties, mostly farmers. They are very unstable, which challenges their commercial value, and therefore limits them to generously funded specialist projects.

The list of Heritage Varieties could be extended beyond the two aforementioned. The standout variety that’s missing is Proctor, bred directly from Plumage Archer by Dr Bell in 1953. Proctor totally dominated malting barley production from the mid 1950’s to the late 1960’s, to the point that maltsters’ and brewers’ contracts only carried the varietal name if it was not Proctor. But today there is little appetite to re-commercialize Proctor, as Maris Otter is such a close derivative.

For both brewers and distillers, the attraction of both Heritage and “landrace” barleys is their pronounced flavour profile, something that has almost faded away from barleys bred across the last two decades. Conversely, Heritage Varieties are only one, or two steps away from those barleys that 300 years ago gave rise to that famous description of beer “Liquid Bread”. That, I think, says more than I can about barleys then and now.