Since every barley (the same year different field/area) have a different levels of protein,FAN and whatever else maltsters adjust their recipe to achieve consistent product. This is usually done in steeping process. Different barley variety might be Malted differently as well. One last thing is that they also blend different batches to make unified product.
If your brewery is large enough to take full batch, they will Malt to your specifications.
Maltsters can do a lot of things in the process by steeping to get you a Malt that has a good extract and preform well in the brewhouse and with killing to develop flavor but flavorful barley variety can give you a big boost.
Barke barley is an heirloom variety.
I am very happy that we are starting to talk about barley as a flavor developer then just talk about hops.
I find it interesting that Seth is especially interested in Full Pint crosses. I’ve been using Full Pint as a base a lot lately. I especially like to blend it with Maris Otter, Golden Promise, Munich, and Vienna. I’ve had great brewhouse success with it but of course the ultimate characteristic is taste. I really like its contribution in the beers I’ve been brewing. I can begin to understand his interest.
More on my Maris Otter post. FWIW, I recently used Crisp for my coffee porter and my Irish Red ales because I still have some on hand here. I got about 6% lower extraction from it than I have with Munton’s in the past with no changes in my brewing procedure. The flavor in the above two beers is good although the porter seemed a slight bit thin (I will evaluate it more as it has some age to it because it was really young and had not had time for the flavors to meld).
Because of ease of availability, I think I am going to return to Munton’s as a base malt for my English beers since I have a bit more consistency with it. That said I am intrigued by Barke and Full Pint and might try them sometime depending on availability.
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The Crisp malt is straight MO, whereas the Muntons is a blend that contains enough MO to legally call it that and get the flavor, otherwise it is blended to achieve the consistency in performance you’ve noticed.