Everything you need to know about... malt

In the latest in his series on the ingredients of beer Nigel Huddleston looks at the role of malted barley

What is malt?

Malt is shorthand for barley that has undergone a process called malting. Malted barley is the main cereal used in brewing beer and the only one that falls within the German purity laws – the Rheinsheitgebot – under which most of the famous beer producing country’s beer is made, and to which brewers in some other parts of Europe, such as the Czech Republic, also adhere to.

In other places, other cereals are used, such as maize or rice, principally as a way of keeping costs down. Wheat is sometimes used to give the distinctive sharp fruitiness of associated with a wheat beer.

In some parts of the world, the types of cereal used is influenced simply by what is available in local markets. Sorghum is frequently used in beers in parts of Africa for that reason. But malted barley remains the most favoured cereal throughout much of the brewing world because it gives better, if not always cheaper, results.

What does malt give to beer?

The principal role of malted barley is as a source of sugars that provide the potential alcohol content of the beer achieved through the fermentation process. But the type of malt used can also affect the appearance and flavour of the final product.

A pale malt tends to produces a relatively lighter beer in flavour and colour, while a heavily-kilned malt will produce darker, richer flavoured beers, though of course there are many other aspects of the brewer’s art that will affect this.

So what is malting exactly?

Barley is a grain .....

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By Nigel Huddleston

Section : Beer Production

Page number : 58