I’m thinking of spending the next six months or so trying to brew with only domestic malts. The thought is to reduce the number of food miles from my ingredients. Doesn’t hurt that domestic malts are significantly cheaper as well. Anyone else do this and how much am I giving up in the process? I brew a little bit of everything, but my house beers are APA, best bitter and hefeweizen.
I’ve been considering the same thing. Malteries Franco Belges is about 45 minutes from my house and it’s a beautiful drive. Makes all sorts of sense (and cents!).
To get back some of the flavor that you get from Maris Otter, you can add in 10-20% of Munich or Vienna.
Some information that compares the malts from different areas in here.
http://brewingtechniques.com/bmg/noonan.html
For those 3 styles, I think the difference will be minimal. I’ve found that domestic pale ale malts can be a good sub for British malts, or you can just throw in a bit of Vienna or Munich like Jeff suggested.
I guess the only thing that might trip me up are specialty grains, I’m not impressed with Briess and I love British crystals.
Of course I must confess I have a nice supply of imported grains of all types so really this is going to take some time for a transition.
Make the change because you like local stuff. The science behind the “food miles” argument is not that good. Most energy is consumed in the production phase. Transportation as a whole represents only 11% of life-cycle greenhouse gas emissions, and final delivery from producer to retail contributes only 4%.
Source: recent article in Environmental Science and Technology by Christopher L. Weber and H. Scott Matthews of Carnegie-Mellon:
“We find that although food is transported long distances in general (1640 km delivery and 6760 km life-cycle supply chain on average) the GHG emissions associated with food are dominated by the production phase, contributing 83% of the average U.S. household’s 8.1 t CO2e/yr footprint for food consumption. Transportation as a whole represents only 11% of life-cycle GHG emissions, and final delivery from producer to retail contributes only 4%. Different food groups exhibit a large range in GHG-intensity; on average, red meat is around 150% more GHG-intensive than chicken or fish. Thus, we suggest that dietary shift can be a more effective means of lowering an average household’s food-related climate footprint than “buying local.” Shifting less than one day per week’s worth of calories from red meat and dairy products to chicken, fish, eggs, or a vegetable-based diet achieves more GHG reduction than buying all locally sourced food.” http://pubs.acs.org/journals/esthag/index.html
Interesting, I had wondered if shipping across the big pond by ship might not be a pretty low energy endeavor. I was thinking that some of the premium cost of the malts was paying for a significant amount of shipping but maybe its just the exchange rate and more middlemen getting paid. I’m still going to do this experiment just for fun and to support domestic business, plus its about 40% cheaper so that supports my endeavors.
What are people’s experiences with GW’s ‘Pale Ale Malt’ vs. ‘Premium 2-row’? I’ve only used the latter but have heard the formwe is kilned slightly darker (2-3l), and said to be more like your British Pale malt. I may try a sack of this on my next malt order.
Makes sense to me. 40% less is a good reason to try the local stuff.
Can anyone verify that European malts are actually made with European barley? N. America grows more 2-row than anywhere else. I know Italian pasta is usually made from wheat from the Dakotas. I suspect the same thing happens with malts. Grown here, shipped there, malted there, shipped back here.
In which case the environmental impact of shipping would double, no? :
That would be the sticking point for me too. I don’t think I brew any ales without at least some UK crystal malt.
Come to think of it, aside from crystal malts, I do use all domestic.
Franco-Belge confirmed to me that their barley is sourced entirely from France, so they certainly don’t import grain from the US.
AFAIK, most continental malt is made with continental barley.
FWIW, here in Montana, two-row malt is grown on the Fairfield Bench, malted in Great Falls, Montana, then sold to us under the name, “Malteurop”…
http://www.fiftypoundsack.com/products/Malteurop-2-Row.html#reviews
Warminster (my local maltster) confim that all of their malt is grown in the UK and almost all of it comes from within 50 miles of the maltings. Thomas Fawcett in Yorkshire told me much the same thing.
Why not take it one step further and go organic? I have been using continental malts but maybe this will encourage me to stick closer to home, I just found a guy in Reno that malts barley grown in colorado and it’s all organic so hey maybe we are good to go. Might have to make my own specialty malts though.
I read an article about some study they did in the UK about transport costs vs growing costs in terms of carbon. It was much worse for the environment to grow tomatoes in the UK than to grow them in Spain and ship them to the UK. Shipping is surprisingly efficient and fertilizers and such are surprisingly inefficient.
Don’t remember where the article is exactly, but it was on the BBCnews site.
My family came to America from Holland and Germany via Russia to be dryland farmers in Kansas. Quite a bit of my family still grows winter wheat that way. It’s pretty cool stuff. Very low input.
AFAIK, most continental malts are organic.
I made the decision to “settle” on domestic years and years ago…with EKG as my only exception in brewing. I keep Americans working, keep profits in the United States, and don’t employ as much (no matter how little) foreign oil to get it to me.
PS My car is domestic, appliances when I can get them, too. My beer choices (when not at home) are 90% domestic, 80% from my home state…probably 75% made within 100 miles of my house (most within 10, but I am lucky to live here)…again, keeps my neighbors employed, keeps profits here to get spent here…this also keeps me employed. Oh, and my LHBS get most of my business, too.
I can’t wait to get an all electric car from GM or Ford so I can further snub foreign oil.
So maybe I won’t win Ninkasi anytime soon with this decision, but hell, excellent beer can be sourced from local products. I could even learn to live without EKG I suppose…this choice is deeply personal (to me)…to each their own.