I met with my sales guy from North Country Malts last week and he warned me that the North American and Canadian 2-row crop was piss poor this year and to expect higher protein content and thinner kernels which will result in poor extraction, necessary mill adjustments and potentially more trub. He actually recommended a protein rest or to use a protease enzyme. Probably gonna be necessary to break out that lot analysis.
European barley is supposedly all fine.
Is that due to drought?
Also, I wonder how long some of that will remain stored and possibly mixed in with next years crop–especially if a lot of brewers buy from Europe this year and US malting companies sell less.
Was the yield poor also, or just the quality.
I’m hearing the same from another maltster in north america; yes, due to drought and high temps. Typically looking at 80% harvest from fields and are seeing closer to 30% this year with close to 14% protein :o. So not only poor quality malt but higher prices are expected as well 
Why does the protein increase when the crop is stressed?
Yes, they are mixing in some of last years crop. Not sure how much.
The price increases have already begun. We just signed a bulk malt contract for our silo, with a notable increase, and our sales rep said that for the time being they weren’t entering into any new bulk malt contracts due to potential shortages.
I assume barley is affected similarly to wheat:
We have seen it before and made it through, but I don’t like the idea of paying even more for domestic barley malt…I had just gotten used to paying more for craft malts.
if nothing else, the protein percentage will increase simply because the starch percentage has decreased.
Gelatinization temperature of the starch also increases in hot dry years which makes reaching proper attenuation difficult. More brewers will have to abandon single temperature mash in favor of multi step.
Climate change has hit our favorite beverage.
Maybe this will make local malt more attractive to brewers, especially in places that weren’t affected by the on-going drought.
Interesting, I’m already buying local malt since it tastes better anyway. Hope that’s not affected.
Thanks for the heads-up Keith! I just got back from purchasing a 55lb bag of MaltEurop Wisconsin Select. I seriously doubt that the drought will affect East Coast craft maltings because we received a bumper crop of rain, but I am not a craft base malt buyer; therefore, I rely on the major maltsters for domestic base malt.
Wow…maybe a good thing our store room is filling up with 55 pound bags of malt from Germany.
As far as rain goes, Texas had more rain this year than in any year that I remember. Sure saved us some $$ on our water bill!
AFAIK, not a lot of halting barley grown in TX. Here in the PNW, where a lot is grown, we had the dryer year on record .
Here are examples -
I stand corrected! Although I would guess by volume they produce a lot less than the major growers up here. Have you tried any of their malts? Are they actually growing or just malting?
Honestly, I was not that familiar with these. But there are one or two Texas breweries that use only Texas Malt. So it is grown here.
If this is available at the retail level, we might try some.
Well lookie here Tennessee Valley Malt coming soon.
I sent them a message. They said they are still in the production phase and hope to be malting and available to the public soon.
PS. North Alabama is called the Tennessee Valley. Of course, this malt house could be somewhere else. We may not be the only Tennessee Valley for all I know.
I am using proximity 2 row barley for my IPA and Irish Red currently and have found it to be very good. They have a new malt house in Monte Vista, CO and get their barley from the San Luis Valley.
It looks like they also have locally sourced malt in the Mid-Atlantic region as well. Below I’ve linked their 2021 harvest report from their site and from a big picture look it doesn’t look great.
2 of the 3 Texas malting companies were contacted. The grain is mostly grown out west, in the Amarillo area. I actually spoke with one of the farmers who grows the barley.
It is available, and a 55 pound bag of Pils will be purchased this week. It is well modified, very suitable for a single infusion step mash.
One company has an office and retail store in Fort Worth (Cow Town). We will make the short drive down there this Friday.
Update: Just placed an order for a full bag of Llano Pilsner Malt. Will have it here this Friday. Can’t wait to try it!