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.
There is nothing more we love than talking to brewers and distillers so if you have any questions, or would like to arrange a call with a member of our team, please feel free to get in touch – we would love to hear from you!
Being served at BeerX 2024
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About Me
Mike is the sales manager for Wales and the West of England and is located in Wigan.
You can read my bio by clicking the button below
It’s that time of year again when we need to start thinking about what beer we serve at BeerX. For the last three years, we’ve served a beer collab brewed with Heritage Malts brewed by Redwillow Brewery. They always go down a storm, so it was a no-brainer to brew with them again this year. The beers that Redwillow Brewery produce are simply fantastic, with amazing flavours and aromas, and always balanced. This is no surprise because science is at the heart of everything that they do. They blend science with novel and new methods to always create fantastic beers.
Toby’s always been a big supporter of our Heritage Malt range and the beers we’ve done in the past have been 100% Hana or Chevallier. This year, we wanted to brew a West Coast IPA that incorporated Maris Otter, and a blend with Chevallier seemed a perfect partnership. Chevallier was chosen for obvious reasons; it tastes fantastic with deep malty-flavours and the little bit of marmalade flavour really lets those USA ‘C’ hops shine.
We wanted to use Maris Otter for other reasons, it’s no secret that brewing with Chevallier can be troublesome. The enzyme levels aren’t great, and attenuation levels can be higher than expected. This can make it hard to brew a balanced beer. Not only does Maris Otter have a fantastic flavour and mouth feel but it will also make sure that the brew day goes smoothly. The extra enzyme levels will make sure we get good attenuation and the good extract levels make it a more efficient brew.
We can’t make beer from just malts; we also need to make sure we use quality hops and quality yeast. This beer combines our Crisp Malts with ‘C’ hops supplied by Yakima Chief which will ferment with speciality thiol yeast from WHC. This should give us a modern take on an old classic.
Mashing went well. We aimed for 66 degrees C and let it stand for one hour. The mash pH was slightly low at 5.16 but this is not uncommon on heritage grains that are floor malted. The floor maltings uses direct fire in the kiln so we needed to burn sulphur to ensure the NDMA levels were low. This can acidify the malt slightly. The low pH did not cause any problems and we got great extraction and conversion. Wort separation went well with high quality bright worts that boasted a fantastic colour and amazing aromas. During the boil we didn’t add any better in hops. We added 500 grams of Centennial, 500 g of Chinook, and 500 grams of Columbus at 30 minutes, 40 minutes, and 50 minutes into the boil. On transfer to the whirlpool, we cooled to 70 degrees and then added something special from YCH – new trial hop extracts.
We transferred to the fermenter for fermentation at 18° c and then we added the thiol yeast. It’s interesting to think what can happen with thiols and the heritage grains so we look forward to the results.
We hit target OG at 1058.8 and a ph in FV of 5.05. All in all the brew day went swimmingly. Dan, in the brewhouse, was fantastic, Tom helped with all the photographs while Michael was busy filling the casks and kegs. During the day we tasted some amazing beers from both tank and can.
I can’t wait to share this brew with you all at BeerX so make sure you got over to the stand for a sample and a chat.
Our stand number is 51-53 and you’ll find us next to our friends over at Charles Faram. We’ve also sponsored ‘The Steep’ stage and will be hosting a malt talk, so be sure not to miss us!
See you in Liverpool, 13th – 14th March!
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