I know a handful of you are within driving distance of the Pioneer Valley. I just ordered my yearly share from Valley Malt. It’s great malt and is locally grown and obviously locally malted. I always get a great variety. I think they will ship too.
http://valleymalt.com/maltofthemonth/
I should add a couple things: it’s $200 a share and in June and January you get 50# of base (choose pale or 2 row) and 15# specialty so totally of 100# base, 30# of specialty and they often throw in extra R&D malts. You always get the usual Munich, Vienna, roasted barley, rye etc. But you also get some cool fun stuff: cherrwood smoked, chocolate wheat, roasted oats etc., plus heirloom varieties.IMO this stuff is spectacular and a step above any commercial brands. Really an incredible value.
I would love to join. I think about it every year. course now we have a local maltster here in VT too so maybe I won’t have to.
At that pricing it’s really not too different from prices on anything at local shops unless you manage to get a discount for buying by the sack.
Agreed, that’s why its such s great value. Higher quality , freshly malted , organic, and local for a similar price.
Really wish we had something like that down my way. There’s supposedly a maltings opening up on the Eastern Shore soon, maybe they’ll aim for a high quality product like Valley seems to.
I’d totally try Valley if they were in my area.
I just brewed with the Valley Malt grains you shipped me, and I am really looking forward to the beer. The Biscuit Wheat tasted good enough to eat with milk and a bit of honey.
The thing about the share is that is too much grain for me. A sack of base malt lasts me over a year because I rarely brew enough of one style all year long to use it up.
+1 to this. I used to purchase sacks of base malt (pilsner, or american 2-row) and found that I brewed so many different styles that I never would fully finish one sack before it would get past the point I wanted to use it for the “freshest beer possible”. Now I pretty much just purchase what I need for a few brews together and have never been happier (or pigeon-holed into a series of styles).
I don’t mind using the pale malt and pilsners for multiple styles and I brew to my taste not style anyway. So pale malt equal: APA, IPA,dipa, stout, Porter brown ale etc. Pilsner malt: lagers, saison, Patersbier, etc… I’ll even occasionally use pale malt with a touch of biscuit malt for an English Ale base. I occasionally buy just enough Maris otter from somewhere else for certain beers.
I just signed up. I’m a couple hours away in New Hampshire. Excited to run down and check the place out in a few weeks!6
Cool! If you have never been to “The Valley” it makes a great day trip. The malster is about half way between Amherst and Northampton. There are brew pubs in both towns, tons of great restaurants and shops.
If your a foodie you want to go to Provisions in Northampton. In addition to a great beer/wine selection they have a great cheese and chacouterie counter with knowledgeable people and hard to find food items.
I’ll be down there all weekend for a soccer tournament. Thanks for the tips on places to checkout.
I used to do the MOTM club, but it was a pain to pick up my share. They only delivered to a few homebrew shops. Understandable though since it’s such a small operation. Great malts though. My only complaint is the customer service was a little rough. It’s a small operation though, so it’s understandable.
It was tough to get any stats on what we were getting, and sometimes we didn’t get what they promised, but they did try and make up for any mistakes. I’m sure things have changed and are getting better though. I wouldn’t discourage anybody from joining MOTM. In the future I might join again. Just haven’t been able to brew enough lately to justify joining up yet.
They just emailed the list of specialty malts that is in addition to 50# of base malt. Any suggestions?
Specialty Malts are:
Organic Warthog Wheat 4 lbs
Naturally Acidulated Biscuit 1 lb
Organic Malted Maize 4 lbs
Roasted Chocolate Maize (Yum) 1 lb
Vienna 3 lbs
Maple Smoked Malt 2 lbs
Naturally Acidulated Biscuit sounds like someone screwed up, either in the steep tank or more likely the kiln.
I’d be curious to try the Malted Maize, Vienna, and Maple Smoked along with some pilsner in an American/new England take on a Rouchebier. you could color correct with some of the chocolate maize
Those are the three I’d be interested in. The maple smoked malt sounds like a great fit for a smoked porter.
I have a nice Smoked Cherrywood Porter on tap now that I made with their cherrywood smoked malt. It was a great smoked malt and I actually upped the smoked malt when milling my grain because the aroma and flavor of the actual malt was so good. I was able to make the smoke assertive because it was just more pleasant than I have experienced with other smoked malts. I didn’t make it overly roasty either. It was a big hit yesterday at an outdoor party we had at our house yesterday where we banged out 18 pizzas, some katchapurri, pitas, and a chicken on the wood fired oven and wood fired grill. It was a very smoky day which also had smoked blue cheese and cheddar on some of the pizzas, and smoked maple syrup on the chicken.
A new England rauchbier sounds good. I have some smoked maple syrup I could picture dosing a glass with as I pour.
The Chocolate Maize and Malted Maize would probably make for a very interesting Schwarz-cream Ale. Wheat + biscuit + vienna sounds like a nice ESB base to me.