Beer Sessions Episode 592: South by Northwest Craft Malt Exchange

Jimi Carbone of Beer Sessions featured our South by Northwest collaboration with Skagit Valley Malting on his podcast, Beer Sessions. In this exploration of Washington and North Carolina malt terroir we created two SMaSH (single malt and single hop) malt-forward pale ales brewed identically at DSSOLR in Asheville, North Carolina and Terramar Brewstillery in Edison, Washington. Both craft beers featured the experimental hop HBC 586 with the only variable being the base malt— both 2-row winter barley varieties grown in North Carolina and in the Skagit Valley.

Here are some of our favorite quotes from the episode, courtesy of Vince Tursi of DSSOLVR.

“Riverbend was doing some really cool stuff with different varietals. We were able to pull much different character than I’ve ever really come across in any other craft maltster. I can pick out [their wheat] in a beer.”

“It was really cool to be able to leverage local. As Riverbend has grown, I’ve always tried to use them whenever I can. And now at DSSOLVR, all of our base malt is Riverbend based. It’s great because that means that all of the base malt we’re using is coming from within 500 miles of our brewery.”

“Riverbend just has this really cool well rounded floral, grassy, herbal, and yet still pronounced malt character.”

Listen here! Episode 592: South by Northwest Craft Malt Exchange on the Heritage Radio Network