Good Beer Hunting: Fields of Gold — As Barley Prices Rise, Craft Malt Hopes to Shine with Greater Cost Parity
The climate of the commodity grain supply chain in 2022 was bleak, to say the least. Our customers vented about shipping delays and inconsistencies, corporatization, and price upsurges— all served with a side of obtuse sales strategies and degraded product quality. As occasional issues turn endemic, we continue to scrutinize our malt quality, business model, and customer service standards. And we’re proud to report that our proactive mission has mitigated reactivity to the aggressively changing malt industry.
From day one we’ve been committed to high quality malt sourced from regional, family farms that we deliver on time. It’s that simple, and we plan to keep it up.
Kate Bernot of Good Beer Hunting recently covered the ramifications of increasing malt prices on the beer industry in an impressive piece that delves into the craft malt industry at large. We were honored to be among the voices of the craft maltsters she profiled, who include Valley Malt and Root Shoot Malting. Included in the dialogue was a quote from our CEO Scott Hickman who said, “There’s been this bizarre inversion, and we have found ourselves being less expensive than a couple of the big malt suppliers in certain situations.”
Bernot’s words are a poignant, timely read for anyone involved in the industry. In so many spaces like this one she hits the nail on the head when she describes why this topic matters.
With the price gap between craft malt and commodity malt narrowing, some brewers and craft maltsters believe now is the time for craft malt to finally compete economically against its larger counterparts. Given high shipping costs, a brewery may save additional money by sourcing its malts from its region rather than from across the country or overseas.
