Hop Culture rounded up eight 2022 trend predictions, including craft beer that tastes like beer— beer made with high quality, locally sourced craft malt to be specific.

“For too long, lagers have been associated with mass-produced American light beers such as Bud Light, Miller Light, and Coors Light,” Grace Weitz says in the article. “But craft brewers have been reclaiming the space, producing excellent versions of the lighter, usually lower-ABV, beer style while often using local, craft ingredients. New Belgium’s Old Tuffy light lager, for example, uses craft malt from Riverbend Malt House in Asheville, NC.”

Thanks Grace for including us! Read the full article here.

Michael Waltrip Brewing Co. just tapped the 3 Ranges Appalachian Ale. This beer featured a custom pilsner malt that we produced in collaboration with Appalachian Grains.

Here’s Brent in the Bristol Herald Courier on the Appalachian Grains regional economic development project, which we’re excited to expand to include more growers in the years ahead.

“It’s important for us to continue to build the local network of grain growers. We focus on the hub and spoke model, and the hub is the conditioning, cleaning and packaging. We can’t be a traditional farm in terms of storage,” Manning said. “We also love that this is a new revenue stream for growers in the area. With winter grains, typically October to June, we’re not competing for space with soybeans, corn or whatever. This is a nice opportunity for growers to incorporate this into their crop rotation.”

Building a robust, local supply chain has always been a cornerstone of our malt on a mission philosophy. Thanks to David Crigger for helping us tell the story!

 

Thanks to the BeerSmith Podcast for hosting our co-founder Brent for an in depth chat about ten years in business. We got into it about development, the malting process, and the undeniable importance of our location.

Listen in here.

Calling all craft brewers and artisan distillers, there’s a new craft malt available from Riverbend Malt House. Sunset Wheat is here1

This new malt is rooted in the same high quality soft red winter wheat that we use for our flagship Appalachian Wheat. From there we explored a warmer kilning regime similar to a Munich-style. This technique uses large volumes of warm, moist air to develop the building blocks for color and flavor development. The result is a malt that is reminiscent of cookie dough finished with a dash of baking spice.

Thanks to these publications for sharing the news of this new offering!

 

Craft Spirits Magazine

Craft Brewing Business

NC Beer Guys

In 2019, the newly named “Project Calypso” led to the planting of almost 30 acres of malting-quality barley in Lee and Scott County that was later processed at Riverbend before it was shipped to 18 Virginia brewers, including Sugar Hill in St. Paul. We’re proud to be a part of what The Pulse calls Virginia’s “grain renaissance.”

Read more here.