Since 1870 we’ve lived and breathed malting. With this passion and expertise, and by combining traditional and modern techniques, we create an impressive range of malted and non-malted products, including several unique and exclusive barley malts.
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Henry and Barry Chevallier Guild are not short on intriguing ancestors. The brothers, who run Bruha Brewing and were owners of Aspall Cyder until 2018, can reel them off, given half a chance. There’s 19th-century astronomer and mathematician Temple Chevallier; John Barrington Trapnell Chevallier, FA Cup winner and early advocate of pasteurisation; and, most intriguing of all, Mary Sargeaunt, who spent her life in a wedding dress having been jilted at the altar.
Sergeant was, Henry claims with a discernible glint in his eye, the inspiration for one of Charles Dickens’ most famous characters, Great Expectations’ Miss Havisham. “I like to think so, anyway,” he says, detailing how Dickens had been in Suffolk at the right time and pointing out that the great author always drew his characters from real life.
A good yarn – and there’s possibly more than a grain of truth to it, too. When it comes to grain, though, another story in the Chevallier Guild family locker takes precedence. In 1819, Reverend John Chevallier, the brothers’ four-times great grandfather, discovered a barley variety growing impressively tall in a front garden owned by his tenant and employee, John Andrews. Andrews, it appears, had brought a seed home from a day working in the fields “in his boot or the turn-up of his trousers,” as Barry puts it, and then deposited it – intentionally or otherwise – on the ground, where it took root.
Impressed, Chevallier took some seeds home to propagate and,grew more and more of this vigorous plant -over the next few years enough so that by 1831 it was ready to be sold on the open market.
Within a few decades, Chevallier, as it was named, was the world’s favourite barley variety – making up 60 percent of all global barley production, according to Barry. It was the backbone of the country’s greatest beers in an era when British brewing ruled the waves, a fact commemorated by a certificate presented by the “Malting Barley Judges and Directors” of the 1931 Brewers Exhibition “to commemorate the centenary of the introduction of Chevallier Barley by the Reverend John Chevallier [in] 1831”, which stills hangs on the wall at Aspall Hall, the family’s ancestral home.
By 1931, though, its golden era was rapidly drawing to a close. Chevallier’s height made it susceptible to wind, and it was superseded by easier-to-manage varieties. By the dawn of the 20th century, it was basically dead and gone, superseded by deliberately bred varieties such as Plumage Archer, although the brothers believe it may still have been grown “somewhere in Australia”.
But now it’s back, revived by Dr Chris Ridout of Norwich’s John Innes Centre, an independent plant and microbiology research foundation, and then reintroduced onto the market by Crisp in 2015. It’s got a lot going for it. Dr Ridout discovered that Chevallier is resistant to Fusarium, a fungal disease that reduces yield and grain quality – while brewers have found it a magnificent source of aroma and flavour.
Will Inman of Kirkstall in Leeds, for example, recently used Chevallier malt to make Unity Ale, a classic English pale ale, for the brewery’s Prize Ales festival this year. “It is incredibly aromatic,” he says. “You get nose-blind after brewing for a while, but the first time we used it here, I was overwhelmed by the smell of malt.”
That potency translates into the flavour of this historic malt, he says. “It has incredible maltiness,” adds Will. “It’s like Maris Otter turned up to 11.” In terms of specific flavour, Chevallier’s potency offers “warm cracker and biscuit aromas, backed up by marmalade sweetness,” according to Crisp Malt’s Mike Benson.
How best to deploy Chevallier is a matter of opinion – not surprising, perhaps, given it has only recently been reintroduced to the market. Will says about 10 or 15 percent of the overall malt bill is plenty to get that incredible malt character, and that it works best in traditional English styles. “It’s a malt I’d use in bitter, even the more modern bitters with higher hopping levels,” he says.
Others, like the Chevallier Guild brothers, believe it works just as well in lager. The pair own two brewing companies: Chevallier, founded in 2010, and Bruha, which they took on last year. All their beers contain Chevallier malt, from ales like Trapnell and Cornwallis Eye PA to pale lager Temple Helles (all these are named, naturally enough, after notable ancestors). “Even at low levels, it makes a real discernible difference to the flavour,” Henry says. “You can tell when it’s not there. There’s a soft nuttiness, a biscuity element, to it.”
The malt’s character can offer a bridge between ale and lager brewing, he believes. “If you go round the pubs here in our part of Suffolk on hot days in the summer, you’ll see a lot of ale drinkers enjoying Temple Hells,” he adds.
The Chevallier Guilds are understandably delighted about the revival of the malt named for their ancestor, although their ownership of Chevallier Brewing means they’ve had to gently remind other brewers about trademark law on a few occasions. “We’re delighted that people are using it – and we don’t mind people calling their beers Chevallier, as long as the brewery name is bigger on the label,” says Henry.
Given the growing desire for flavoursome products, the future of Chevallier malt looks good – especially given that, as Reverend John Chevalier discovered more than 200 years ago, it doesn’t need much encouragement to grow to a prodigious height. At a time when regenerative farming is a growing trend, there’s a lot to be said for that. Another compelling chapter in the Chevallier Guild’s story is ready to be written – or, perhaps more accurately, tasted.
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