This post is from Keir, one of the brew team!
Golden promise is a malt that is heavily used here at Cloudwater and can be found in everything from our Fresh AF, right the way through to the My Continuous Improvement (MCI) series, the only real exception being our lagers (but that is a topic for another day). It’s a heritage variety of spring barley (meaning it is planted in the spring and harvested in the summer), prized by brewers around the world for its flavour but only grown in the UK. It is predominantly grown on the east coast of Scotland, with a small amount being grown in England near the Scottish border.
On July 23rd both myself and Changmin were fortunate enough to be invited up north by Simpsons malt, a family run maltster that supplies a lot of the grain we use. After a long four and a half hour drive we finally reached Beal, overlooking Lindisfarne just south of Berwick upon Tweed. Here we met our hosts from Simpsons, alongside our fellow invitees from various breweries including Timothy Taylors, Roosters, Bakers Dozen and Fell. After enjoying a quick spot of lunch we were taken to the first field of the day, the Beal farm trials site, where simpsons are able to grow different varieties of spring barley in order to assess their characteristics and growing properties.
Of course, the first variety of barley talked about was Golden Promise, which at this point looked almost ready for harvest compared to some of the others. One of the things explained to us by David Cairns, their agrochemical and technical director, was that whilst Golden Promise is a great malt for brewing with, it is still a heritage barley (first grown in the 1950s). This means that whilst barley development has continued to enable greater yields, more disease resistance and easier growing (breeding in drought resistance was also mentioned), Golden Promise has not changed much over the years, so most notably it offers a lower yield than other more modern varieties. As a result, this means that in order to get farmers to grow it, they have to be offered a premium price, which naturally means that for brewers to buy it it comes at a bit more of a cost than other, perhaps less characteristic but higher yielding base malts.
Following on from this we then travelled north into Scotland, albeit only just. There were some cracking sea views during the short drive, no surprises why this is an area of outstanding natural beauty! We arrived at Bee Edge farm in Eyemouth and were greeted by Annabelle Hamilton, their farmer. We were shown into one of her fields of Golden Promise barley, which was looking gloriously golden and healthy. She explained a few things about the crop to us, but most notably that it was probably one of the best crops of Golden Promise they have had. With plenty of rain toward the beginning of the year and during planting, followed by the heat we have had in the last couple of months the barley has grown tall, healthy and surprisingly fast. According to Annabelle in more recent years the time from sowing to harvest has decreased a noticeable amount, with no question about it being due to (at the very least in part) the changing UK climate, especially the hotter summers. By her reckoning the field we were in was due to be harvested about 10 days sooner than the previous year, which was not an insignificant amount!
Overall it was fascinating to visit both growing sites, as brewers we mainly see barley as a malted product, for us in 25kg bags after the crop has been through the malting process (more to come on that). To actually see the beginning of the process, and learn more about it from the people growing Golden Promise was pretty special and really shone a light on the work that is put in to keep breweries (and distilleries) supplied throughout the year, alongside the changes that farmers have seen over the last number of years.
After this visit it was back to the hotel in Berwick, checked in and headed down to a cracking little pub called The Curfew. After spending so much time learning about barley and being amongst it, it seemed only right to try some in a fermented liquid form! Whilst it was a cosy little micropub, we all managed to squeeze in, joined by a few of the folks at Simpsons too. The cask beer was great, featuring some more local breweries, the keg also being top notch too ( Kernel’s Citra pale ale took a bit of a hammering!)
After all meeting outside the hotel it was time for the final item on the agenda; a visit to Simpsons Tweed Valley maltings. A short 7 minute drive across the river Tweed got us to their sight, and gave us our first glimpse of the facility. One thing that immediately struck me was the scale; whilst not unexpected the size of it was far larger than I am used to at Cloudwater!
After donning high vis jackets and fashionable orange hard hats, we were led off on our tour of the site. We started off at intake, where trucks loaded with barley are weighed, and samples are taken via a pneumatic arm straight from the truck to go for testing. From here they can assess the barley for it’s properties, and determine whether it will be suitable for malting or sent for animal feed instead. The main things they check for are variety, ensuring it is all the same barley (e.g all Golden Promise and not mixed with other types), moisture content and viability.
We were then taken to their water processing site, which lets them re-use water from the steeping process. This is done by filtering, centrifuging and finally running the water through a reverse osmosis filter before adding back minerals, meaning that they can re use the water again, reducing waste and pollution, One of the recurring things throughout our site visit was reduction in waste products throughout all their processes, and sustainability.
This was followed by heading toward the main processing areas, passing by the loading bays where trucks were tipping their grain into grates in the ground to be conveyed by augers into holding silos. We saw the end of the process as well, trucks being loaded with finished malted barley, just before heading into their control centre for this part of the process. Being a dusty job, a lot of the dust they produce is collected by big aspirators, which they then turn into pellets that can be mixed with animal feed or fed straight to livestock. Once again another use for something that would be otherwise a waste product!
One of the highlights for me was seeing the big germination drums they have on site. Whilst these are only really used for one of their distilling customers, they were impressive to see! Huge, horizontal metal cylinders, sat on rollers with big old motors at one end, it lets them rotate at regular intervals to aid with consistent germination in the malt. As opposed to their GKVs (germination and kilning vessels) these only carried out one process, and so would have had to be kilned elsewhere.
At various periods through the wet steeping phase the whole vessel is roused; air pressure pushes grain up the central pipe which then hits the cap on top, splashing watery grain back into the tank. This keeps the barley moving, preventing it from matting together, and also introduces oxygen in. It was described to us as a violent process, and before seeing it I wasn’t quite sure what was meant by this, however I would wholeheartedly agree with this definition now. Watery barley flying up and smashing against the cap on top, and then being flung out to splash down back into the tank, the whole time a foam being churned up on top. It was definitely one of the more visceral sights on the visit!
After an air rest in which the water is drained and the barley allowed to sit for a number of hours, with a fan blowing through to remove CO2, a second ‘wet’ phase takes place. The whole process takes somewhere between 40 and 48 hours, bringing the moisture of the barley up from the roughly 12% it sits at in storage, to 45%, the optimal percentage for germination.
Following the process more in order now, we were taken to their GKVs, via one of their control rooms. It was nice to see a lot of analogue equipment, physical switches and buttons rather than touch screens, a painted layout using individual LED lights and readouts to show what stage vessels were in and which conveyors were running. Whilst being an example of ‘older’ technology (they use computer displays and tablets for a lot of their processes now) it was cool to see what would have been used prior to the smartphone era we are currently in. That said, this equipment was very much still in use, so whilst there are more modern solutions, it is in no way obsolete!
At this point in the malting cycle the barley, which has been harvested, stored, sorted and steeped, is now ready for its final stages. The grain starts to grow, as it would in the ground, breaking down the cell walls, protein matrix and starch granules. This would normally feed the plant in order to grow again, however as brewers we want this starch to remain, so that we can break it down by enzymes in our mashing process into various sugars which will then be consumed by yeast and turned into alcohol.
Wrapping up the day we headed back to their main building, enjoying a meal deal whilst admiring the many many bottles and cans from various breweries and years in their boardroom. After some last chats about malt, beer and brewing in general it was time to head back down to Manchester, and for a final couple of beers in Unit 9 as we processed the last couple of days.
A huge thank you to Simpsons for having us, especially to Richard, Jamie and Martin who made sure we were at the right places at the right times and just generally being great hosts. Also to Anabelle of Bee Edge for taking the time to both show us and explain about farming Golden Promise. And of course to the many other people that helped to make this trip possible and share a bit of their world with us. It was really eye opening to see behind the scenes of an ingredient that sometimes can be a little overlooked as just malt, but really showed how much there is to be proud of as a brewer in the UK. To have something prized by breweries around the world being grown and processed just up the road (relatively speaking) is a real privilege, and something that should be celebrated more. Whilst hops dominate most of the beers produced these days, the adage ‘you can’t make good beer with bad malt’ rings true, you need a strong foundation to build upon, which is what we are afforded by Golden Promise. And although hoppy beers are more prevalent, there are numerous malt forward beers still being produced, from best bitters, to old ales, to barleywines (the best style let's be honest) that all allow malt to sing and show off. It’s not a trip I will be forgetting any time soon!
