Visits to Maltings

Malt is Beer's principal raw material. Yes, Malt, not Hops, the latter being there to provide aroma and bitterness and preserve the beer, rather than to be what Malt is, i.e. Malt is, without question, the very best precursor of Quality Beer's fundamental constituents: Flavour and Alcohol! There is much information to be found on Malt, including how it is made, in the Maltsters' Association of Great Britain (MAGB) website, www.ukmalt.com.

This White Beer Travels Web page provides information on a number of visits to Maltings, a Maltings being a place where the cereal crop, Barley (Hordeum Vulgare), is steeped in water to induce its germination, after a few days of which, the germination is stopped by applying heat, the end product being called Malted Barley, or just Malt; Barley does not have the enzymes required to convert the Starch in the Barley to Fermentable Sugar, during the mashing phase of the brewing process, whereas Malt does.

Weyermann Malz (Malt), Brennerstrasse 17-19 (near the corner with Memmelsdorfer Strasse), Bamberg, Germany, tel 0951 93 220 12, GPS: 49.904818^o N, 10.897228^o E,
www.weyermannmalt.com (English pages), www.weyermann.de (German pages, with links to pages in many other languages)

The photo, above left, of the maltings from the railway tracks side, was taken, on behalf of Weyermann, by Michael Aust, of xpo visuelle kommunikation, bamberg (www.xpo.it), in June, 2003. In the photo to its right, yours truly, John White, is in the middle, with Weyermann's President, Sabine Weyermann, and Weyermann's Vice President, Sabine's husband, Thomas Kraus-Weyermann. This photo was taken, in November, 2006, by Jez (rauchbier, Smoke Beer) Blake, of Highwood Brewery (www.tom-wood.com), in Lincolnshire, England. Sabine and Thomas met when they were studying at the world famous Weihenstephan Brewing School (www.wzw.tum.de), in Freising, in Bavaria, which incorporates the world's oldest brewery (www.brauerei-weihenstephan.de). They then went their separate ways, but Sabine later went to the Kronen Brauerei, in Dortmund (now part of DAB), and tried to sell its Brew Master some Malt. She did not succeed in this, but the Brew Master, Thomas Kraus, asked her to marry him. Such information, and much of the other historical information on Weyermann on this White Beer Travels Web page, has been sourced from the excellent, very comprehensive history of the company and the Weyermann family, available on the Weyermann website (click on "History" on the English pages, or "Firmengeschichte" on the German ones); it goes back to the year 1510.

My first visit to Weyermann Malz (Malt), a justly world-renowned Maltings (Mälzerei), in "The" Beer City of Bamberg, in Franken (Franconia), Bavaria, was in November, 2006, at the "Bavarian Party", hosted by Sabine Weyermann, and her husband, Thomas. Stepping through the gate was a real eye opener; it is only when you come inside the place that you realise how splendid the buildings making up the place are. In German, the Party is called Messeausklang, this being a Weyermann finale to the brewing industry trade fair, Brau Beviale (www.brau-beviale.de), held in Nuremberg (Nürnberg), immediately before the party.

Weyermann is a big and successful company, but Sabine and Thomas are not hidden away in some head office, away from the action; they are right there greeting everyone coming to the party; you get the small, traditional company warmth, but you can see that it is a company that produces high volumes of products (over 60,000 tonnes of Malt per annum), but without the normal compromises on quality that one often associates with big companies. A feel for the size of the Weyermann installation in Bamberg can be obtained from the aerial photo to the left, which was taken in June, 2006, by Michael Aust, of xpo visuelle kommunikation, bamberg (www.xpo.it).

Although most maltings do not have a brewery on the premises, at Weyermann Malt, there are two! The first brewery is the 92 hectolitre Heinz Weyermann Röstmalzbierbrauerei (Roasted Malt Brewery) produces a significant amount of wort, making it the second largest "brewery" in Bamberg after Kaiserdom (www.kaiserdom.de), but the wort is not processed further to make beer; it is used to make malt extracts, produced using vacuum evaporation, and SINAMAR®, a derivative of these, made from CARAFA®, a de-husked Chocolate Roasted Malt. SINAMAR® , the name of which is derived from the Latin Sine Amaro (Without Bitterness, ohne Bittere), is a jet black liquid which can be used to colour commercial Bavarian brews, and others that conform to the famous Bavarian Purity Law, the Reinheitsgebot; being a natural product, SINAMAR® also has the great advantage, when giving an ingredients disclosure on a beer label, or wherever, of not having an E-Number. i.e. it can rightly be described as a malt extract, although a small amount of fermentation of the wort used to produce it is carried out, so that it is technically a beer, the Reinheitsgebot allowing the blending of beer. Note that, as well as beer, SINAMAR® is used to colour other products, such as bread, cereals, sweets (candy), tea, pharmaceutical products and spirits. The current malt extract brewery was supplied, in 1996, by Steinecker, from Freising, in Bavaria, who are in the Krones group (www.krones.com); it is installed in the former Boiler House (Kesselhaus) of the maltings. Freising is home to Weihenstephan, the world's oldest brewery (www.brauerei-weihenstephan.de), and the famous Weihenstephan Brewing School (www.wzw.tum.de).

Weyermann's second brewery is the 2.5 hectolitre Test/Pilot Brewery (Versuchsbrauerei). It is used to try out recipes, both by Weyermann themselves and by visiting brewers. It was installed in 2003, by Kaspar Schulz (www.kaspar-schulz.de), the world's oldest manufacturer of brewing equipment; they were established in 1677. They are based in Bamberg, only a few hundred yards/metres from Weyermann. Furthermore, the Pilot Brewery produces some excellent beers that are made available to Weyermann employees and visitors to the maltings. Alongside the Test Brewery, there is a Test/Pilot Maltings (Versuchsmälzerei), a remarkable, single vessel (Unimälzer, All-In-One Maltings) in which the whole maltings process can be carried out; trials to produce Gluten-free Malt have been undertaken. The Test Maltings, which can produce up to 150 kilograms of malt, was supplied by HDP (Heavy Duty Products) (www.hdpcanada.com), who are based in Cambridge, Ontario, Canada. The above photos were taken by John White, in November, 2006. The one on the left is the Test Brewery; the one on the right is the Pilot Maltings.

At the Bavarian Party, in November, 2006, Weyermann Versuchsbrauerei Beers were served and sampled in, amongst other places, the Weyermann Bräustüberl, a most pleasant bar/restaurant, which is used by Weyermann employees, and is also used for entertaining invited visitors to the maltings, see the photo, below left. The above two photos, featuring Weyermann beers, were taken by John White, in November, 2006. In the one on the left, Malt sacks for three of the around fifty different types of Malt that Weyermann produce can be seen: Carared® (a Caramel Malt), Weizenmalz Hell (Pale Wheat Malt) and Bio Pilsner Malz (Organic Pilsener Malt); full details of all the Weyermann Malts are available on their website. In the photo on the right, Jez Blake is writing tasting notes on the beers for entry into the renowned ratebeer website, www.ratebeer.com. Note the intertwined "MW" logo, see below, on the table, on the sacks, and on the Weyermann beer glasses in the other photo. Also note the wild vines on the walls of Weyermann's wonderful listed building, on the top, left hand side of the photo on the right. There were grapes on them, all shrivelled up; I wonder if there will be enough to make a grape-flavoured beer from them, c.f. Cantillon, in Brussels, in Belgium (www.cantillon.be, White Beer Travels Web page), who use Weyermann Malt to produce their Organic Lambic/Gueuze Beers. Click here to see a photo of Weyermann Malt sacks in Cantillon, and here for information on Grape Beers that Cantillon have produced using very late-harvested grapes. The servery for the beers sampled in the open was housed in a converted fire engine!

The main barley varieties used by Weyermann are Barke, Aurica, Braemar, Ursa, Krona, Steffi, Alexis and Hanka. The main wheat varieties used are Maltop, Flair and Hermann. The variety is not declared on the sacks, but if a customer required a malt produced from a particular barley/wheat variety, this would be declared on the accompanying shipping documents.

The Weyermann Versuchsbrauerei Beers available at the 2006 Bavarian Party were Weyermann Schlotfegerla, Weyermann Golden Lager, Weyermann Weyzen, Weyermann Bamberg Stout, Weyermann India Pale Ale (IPA) and Weyermann Baltic Porter. The Wheat Malt (Dekan variety) used in the Weyermann Weyzen, a Wheat Beer, was produced in the Test Maltings; the other beers were produced with a good number of the commercially available Weyermann Malts, for example, the mash for Schlotfegerla (5.2%), a black Smoke Beer (Rauchbier), contains: 3% Weyermann Carafa® Special Type 2; 3% Weyermann Acidulated Malt; 10% Weyermann Caramunich® Type 2; 27% Weyermann Smoked Malt; and 57% Weyermann Munich Malt Type 2. SINAMAR® is also added for colour. The recipes for the Weyermann Versuchsbrauerei Beers were available in fact sheets at the Party, and they can also be seen on the Weyermann website, for example, click here for the Schlotfegerla recipe, which was available on a black board in the Pilot Brewery, see the photo, above right; as you can see, there were also attractions such as Bag Pipe players at the party. Other beers are also available in the Weyermann bar, typically other Bamberg beers, such as Kaiserdom Pils and Aecht Schlenkerla Rauchbier Märzen.

It was most interesting to sample the Weyermann Versuchsbrauerei Beers; I did not realise that so many different, truly excellent beers would be available; All the beers that I tried were top class. What was fascinating for me was the total authenticity of the beers that were not German styles, such as the IPA, the Bamberg Stout and the Baltic Porter; these really were stunning beers that will impress the most hardened Speciality/Specialty/Craft Beer fan.

In the Summer, a common site in Beer Gardens, such as the Wilde Rose Keller (www.wilde-rose-keller.de), on the Stephansberg, in Bamberg, are wooden covers placed on top of Beer Steins (Krüge), to stop flies having a swim, such as the Krugdeckel (Krug or Stein Cover), above left. At the Bavarian Party, a renowned Cooperage (Barrel Maker), Der Kreit'n Büttner (Büttnerei Hofmann) (www.kreitn-buettner.de), from Hirschaid, near Bamberg, was on hand to make personalised covers with the Weyermann "MW" on them, as per the one above right. This was another nice element in the meticulous organisation that went into making the Party such a big success. The Cooper (Büttner or Fassmacher), Anton Hofmann, was present to answer queries. Volker Rothbauer, from Brumas (www.brumas.de, www.brumas-homebrewery.co.uk) was also present demonstrating the BrauEule® (Brew Owl) Microbrewery that you can set up in your own home or pub. There were, of course, tours of this most impressive of maltings, in different languages. My tour was superbly conducted in English by Weyermann's Andreas Richter, who, like a high proportion of Weyermann's employees, has University qualifications in Brewing and Malting, in fact Andreas, like Sabine Weyermann, and her husband, went to Weihenstephan, a very popular choice amongst the Weyermann employees. Andreas is in charge of Quality Control and Quality Management; his responsibilities include running the Test Brewery. There were also visits to the Weyermann Distillery, where one went by horse-drawn cart. There was no problem eating. On tables there were Pretzels and Dry Sausages; there was a Bratwurst (Grilled Sausage) stall; there was a stall handing out cones of warm Knuspermalz (Snack Malt), Malt which had been lightly coated in a sweet coating; and there was a truly excellent Bavarian Buffet in the Weyermann Ballroom.

Schlotfegerla was introduced in 2003, to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the production of SINAMAR®, which is as black as the soot on a Chimney Sweep. When SINAMAR® was first produced, the beer that it was based on was brewed by two Bamberg breweries, Keesmann (www.keesmann-braeu.de) and Maisel (www.maisel-braeu-bamberg.de), and later it was produced on Bamberg's historic brewing street, Königstrasse, in the Johann Baptist Weyermann Farbmalzbierbrauerei (Colour or Colouring Malt Brewery), at Obere Königstraße 21, which, in fact, is the address of a brewery that was founded at this address in 1649, that is still going strong to this day, the just-mentioned Brauerei Fässla, i.e. Weyermann rented brewing capacity here. A brewery with the name Johann Baptist Weyermann Farbmalzbierbrauerei was later set up in Potsdam, in the former East Germany, but, as a consequence of the Second World War, in 1948, this was transferred back to Bamberg, within Weyermann Malz, where it was given the name Heinz Weyermann Farbmalzbierbrauerei, the forerunner of the present-day Heinz Weyermann Röstmalzbierbrauerei (Roast Malt Brewery), covered above.

There is an excellent souvenir shop, the Weyermann Fan Shop, a short distance inside the gates, to the left, which opens on Fridays between 1pm and 3pm. Here, one can buy a variety of Weyermann souvenirs, including a wonderful book on the history of Weyermann, and, as can be seen, one can also buy bottles of Weyermann Versuchsbrauerei Beers, including Schlotfegerla. The above two photos featuring The Weyermann Fan Shop were taken by John White, in May, 2007, during a White Beer Travels visit to Weyermann, which was part of a trip to Bamberg, commissioned by the Southern UK section of the Institute of Brewing & Distilling (www.ibd.org.uk). IBD guests included world-renowned Beer Writer, Roger Protz (1939-), www.beer-pages.com. Further details of the IBD trip can be seen by clicking here.

There is a superb book by Dr Christian Fiedler covering Bamberg's brewing history: Bamberg - die wahre Hauptstadt des Bieres (216 pages (220x235mm), ISBN 3-00-013723-8) (www.bamberger-bier.de). In it, the city's breweries, past and present are covered. There is a special feature on Königstraße, since this street had an incredible concentration of breweries. Click here for a White Beer Travels Web page covering Christian's book, which includes details of a tour that he conducted for White Beer Travels Beer Hunters, that started in Königstraße. Christian's book is on sale in the Weyermann Fan shop; a copy can be seen on the back shelf in the photo, above left.

As well as being referred to as Weyermann Malz or Weyermann Malt or Weyermann Malzfabrik (Malt Factory), in North America, the company is generally referred to as Weyermann Specialty Malts or the Weyermann Specialty Malting Company, but in Germany, you will also see it referred to as the Mich. Weyermann Brau- Röst- und Caramelmalz Fabrik, which means the Michael Weyermann Brew Malt, Roast Malt and Caramel Malt Factory. In 1879, Johann Baptist Weyermann founded the company, after inheriting a grain store, from his father, Michael Weyermann. Johann named the company, the Mich. Weyermann's Malzkaffee Fabrik (Malt Coffee), i.e. Weyermann was initially in the business of producing a Coffee substitute rival to Chicory, based on Malt, before it expanded into Colouring Malt (Farbmalz) (produced in what was called a Farbmalzbrennerei (Colouring Malt Distillery), in the new Brennerstrasse location), and then it progressed into the general Malt production business, both for breweries and bakeries. Johann named the company, in honour of his father, Michael Weyermann, whose entwined initials, MW, form the company's logo, see above. Weyermann malts are still used today in the production of coffee replacements, such as Nestlé Caro. The 1879 enterprise consisted of a small Roasting Drum (Rösttrommel), under a tarpaulin on the Kaulberg, one of Bamberg's seven hills, at Laurenzistrasse 28. The Roasted Malt Brewery is named after Heinz Weyermann, the great-grandson of the company's founder.

Rather than germination on the floor, with manual turning, to prevent matting during the germination phase, as practised by the two English maltsters covered on this page, below and below, Weyermann use Saladin boxes to germinate the barley; in these, the germinating barley is mechanically turned. The photo to the left shows one of the Weyermann Saladin boxes. It was taken, on behalf of Weyermann, by Michael Aust, of xpo visuelle kommunikation, bamberg (www.xpo.it), who also took the photo, alongside it. Weyermann then employ two methods for drying and curing. For the main Brewery Malts (Braumalz), the lightly coloured Malts, Kilns are used, but, for Caramel and Roast Malts, they use Roasting Drums (Röster), something which is quite unusual in the maltings world. Weyermann recognise that this is a more expensive way of producing such Malts, but they regard it, to quote Thomas Kraus-Weyermann, as the proper way, rather than the quick and easy way. Weyermann consider that the Caramel and Roast Malt that they produce have a consistent quality, with, for example, the Caramel Malt always having 100% crystallized Malt in it, compared with the variable amounts produced when it is made in a kiln. The latter inconsistency can, of course, be passed on to the beers produced from it. The splendidly solid Roasting Drums, see the photo, above right, which are fired by natural gas (Erdgas), were supplied by G. W. Barth, in Ludwigsburg, who are also renowned producers of industrial-scale Coffee Roasters, which are clearly related, technically.

Weyermann Malt is highly regarded throughout the world, and, as testament to its top quality, is even imported in significant quantities into countries that produce their own Malt, such as the USA and Canada. The photo to the left, of Smoked Malt (Rauchmalz), destined for Canadian Importers, Gilbertson & Page (www.gilbertsonandpage.com), was taken by John White, in November, 2006, in the Logistical Centre (Logistikzentrum), which was opened across the road from the main maltings, in 2005; despite the nature of the product, the Centre has a completely dust-free environment, but, like all places in Weyermann, it is wonderfully decorated with old brewery plaques. The US importers are Crosby & Baker (www.crosby-baker.com).

For sales in the UK, Weyermann have a partnership with the renowned firm of Hop Merchants, Charles Faram & Co, in Worcestershire, England (www.charlesfaram.co.uk, www.wellhopped.co.uk). Click here to see a report on a visit to one of their Hop Farms, in Herefordshire, England; the report includes a photo of yours truly, with Sabine Weyermann!

Weyermann have a further maltings outside of Bamberg, and also a large grain storage facility, in the main farming area where they source barley, the Weyermann Getreideerfassung, in Leesau. At harvest time, a special Harvest Beer (3.8/4%) for the farm workers is produced in the Weyermann Pilot Brewery.

The wonderful Baroque city of Bamberg has ten or more brewing establishments, the "more" being the two breweries within Weyermann Malz. Its most famous brewery is Heller, which is best known for the Smoke Beer (Rauchbier) available in its magnificent tavern, the Schlenkerla (www.schlenkerla.de and www.smokebeer.com (English-language pages), White Beer Travels Web page). Another renowned Bamberg Smoke Beer is produced by the Brauerei Spezial (www.brauerei-spezial.de). Both Heller and Spezial are Weyermann customers, but they produce their own Smoked Malt, alongside their breweries. Click here for a White Beer Travels Web page covering a visit to the Brauerei Spezial, and its Maltings. The seventy-seven page White Beer Travels guide covering Bamberg is available from the Downloads page, along with the thirty-one page companion guide to Nürnberg (Nuremberg).

Warminster Maltings, 39 Pound Street, Warminster, BA12 8NN, Wiltshire, England, tel 01985 212014,
GPS: 51.203360^o N, 2.192497^o W, www.warminster-malt.co.uk

If you believe in UFOs, then Warminster, the UFO capital of the UK, is a place that you might head for, or should you want to, or have to, engage in Army manoeuvres on Salisbury Plain, then you may end up in the place, but many are here for the beer, well, perhaps for its principal raw material: Malt.

A previous Guild visit to a Maltings is covered below. Like the Maltings covered below, Warminster Maltings is a traditional floor maltings. One distinguishing feature of this particular maltings is that since 1996, it has been producing Organic Malt, the only other company doing this in the UK being Crisp Malting (www.crispmalt.info), who are based in Great Ryburgh, Fakenham, in Norfolk. Note that Organic Barley needs to be a Spring Barley, so all Organic Malt produced in Warminster is the Cellar variety. The converse is not true, i.e. all Cellar Malt is not Organic. After three days' steeping of the Barley, and five days' of germination on the double-stacked floors, there is one day of kilning, the heat source being gas, although on a tour one is shown a no-longer-used coal-fired kiln, which has lettering on it declaring that the patents on it are Beaven ones, see below, and that it was manufactured by Carson & Toone, in Warminster.

There are records of malting having taken place on the present site occupied by Warminster Maltings in the 18th Century; there were thirty-six maltings in Warminster, in 1720, and a good number of breweries, but the earliest parts of the present Grade II listed building date from 1879; "Since 1879" is declared on the company's Malt Sacks. This was the year when the building was rebuilt; at this time, it operated under the name of its owner, William Frank Morgan, as per the name over the door, in the photo to the right, which was taken by John White, in April, 2005. Edwin Sloper Beaven (1857-1941), a farmer's son, joined the company, at the age of thirteen, with only a leaver's certificate, but when he died, he was Dr Edwin Sloper Beaven, i.e. he had been awarded an honorary doctorate in Plant Breeding from Cambridge University.

Dr Beaven bred the barley variety, Plumage Archer, the first recognised, genetically true variety of barley. Today, the annual amount of Barley converted into Malt, at Warminster Maltings is 5,000 tonnes, 65% of this being the much hallowed Maris Otter variety, which is just two generations removed from Plumage Archer. 200 tonnes of Malted Wheat are produced each year. They supply around 200 breweries with Malt in the UK; there are about 500 breweries in their database. They also have international customers, principally in North and South America, France and Japan. Malt is typically delivered in 25kg sacks, uncrushed, or crushed to the customer's specification. A significant customer for the Wheat Malt is the Hop Back Brewery (www.hopback.co.uk), in Downton, Salisbury, in Wiltshire; it is an important part of the mash for their Thunder Storm (5%).

Today, there is just the one active Maltings in Warminster and no breweries, although there are a healthy number of breweries in the vicinity, who seek out the top quality Malt that Warminster Maltings produce.

At the time of Dr Beaven's death in 1941, Warminster Maltings was known as E.S. Beaven (Maltings) Ltd. Some time after, it came into the hands of Guinness, who owned it until 1994. The current Head Maltster, Chris Garrett, who had his interview to join the place in his school uniform, is a Real Ale fan, who has been with the firm for years, many when it was under the ownership of Guinness. However, until they left, all he drank was Guinness!

In February, 2001, Warminster Maltings was purchased by the renowned Barley Merchants, Robin Appel Ltd (www.robin-appel.com). Robin Appel are one of only two companies who own the right to sell the hallowed Maris Otter seed to barley growers, the other being H Banham, in Hempton, Fakenham, Norfolk.

Warminster Maltings' "Warranty of Origin_TM" Scheme

An interesting and laudable initiative of Warminster Maltings is its "Warranty of Origin" scheme, where brewers can buy Malt of a guaranteed origin, so that, for example, a Sussex Brewery could declare that its Sussex Beer was produced using Sussex Malt; one of the participants of the Warranty of Origin Scheme is a farm brewery, which will brew with Malt obtained from barley grown on its own estate. In addition to the barley being categorised by where it is grown, a Certificate of Compliance will be provided giving: the variety of the barley, such as Maris Otter or Optic; soil type; husbandry best practice; farm assurance and harvest quality criteria; and malting protocols for floor-made Malt. Brewers will have on-line access to their bespoke crop log. This scheme was announced by Robin Appel, in 2005. In the photo to the left, which was taken by John White, in April, 2005, Robin is explaining the scheme to members of the British Guild of Beer Writers, in Warminster Maltings. In his hand, he has a brochure covering the scheme, which is entitled Barley from a farm near you!.

The Maltings' Warranty of Origin scheme is directly analogous to the French Appellation Contrôlée system that is used to guarantee that products in France, particularly wine and cheese, come from a designated area, and are produced from materials coming from that area. Despite his surname, Robin resisted the idea of using Controlled Appellation, or whatever, i.e. he has trademarked Warranty of Origin_TM, which a good number of brewers have shown interest in. The logo for it is based on a Victorian glass drinking vessel, belonging to Robin, called a Rommer (sometimes written as Romer and Rummer, c.f. the German Römer, a Roman [Glass]). The actual glass used is featured in the brochure, as can be seen in the photo, above.

After the Maltings visit, which included its modern laboratory, a lunch, which featured some excellent local cheeses, was accompanied by beers from a Warminster Maltings customer in nearby Westbury: Westbury Ales, which is based at the Horse & Groom (Alfred Street, BA13 3DY, tel 07771 976865). This was set up in 2004. The beers sampled were Pale Storm (4%) and Dark Horse (3.7%), the latter being named as an opposite to the Westbury White Horse, a famous Horse, cut into the chalk of Westbury Hill.

In summary, it is clear that Warminster Maltings go out of their way to ensure that they produce Malt of the very highest quality, which is purchased by brewers who provide us with some of the best beer in the land and beyond.

Tuckers Maltings, Newton Abbot, Teign Road, TQ12 4AA, Devon, England, tel 01626 334734,
GPS: 50.531765^o N, 3.599358^o W, www.tuckersmaltings.com

Tuckers Maltings was visited as part of a trip by the British Guild of Beer Writers (www.beerwriters.co.uk), in November, 2004. Click here for details of the rest of the trip. Tuckers produce Malt of the quality required to produce the very best Real Ales. The above two photos were taken by John White, in November, 2004, outside and inside the Maltings. At Tuckers, as is shown in the photo, above right, the germination of the Barley comes about by placing the steeped Barley on a floor, where it stays for four to six days, with regular manual turning to prevent matting, as the rootlets develop: Tuckers is a Floor Maltings, as opposed to the more industrial Pneumatic Maltings, which typically produce more Malt in a week, than Tuckers produce in a year; Tuckers produce (2003) 1,600 tons of Malt per year from 2,000 tons of Barley. The Barley being converted to Malt in the photo is the Maris Otter variety, which is much hallowed by Real Ale fans. This particular batch of Maris Otter was grown in Devon, Tucker's preferred source, along with Cornwall, for its Barley. After its time on the floor, germination is arrested by drying and curing in a kiln. The heat source for the typically forty-eight hour kilning at Tuckers is produced by burning gas in a Kiln. Again the grains are spread on a floor, with the hot flue gases from the Kiln used to raise the temperature of the grains, to around 65^oC for thirty-six hours of the kilning, with a final "dry off", for the last twelve hours (achieved by closing the roof), when the temperature is raised to 90^oC, for Pale Malt production. To achieve the colour (20 EBC, 8^oL) required by one customer, St. Austell Brewery (www.staustellbrewery.co.uk) (click here for details), for the Cornish Gold Malt, which is exclusively produced by Tuckers for this brewery, Tuckers experimented and came up with a method of "stewing in the kiln", which promotes "taking colour", this being also facilitated by using a higher Nitrogen content barley and a higher "dry off" temperature of 110^oC. Such flexibility is one of Tuckers's hallmarks. All this was fully explained to us by our marvellous guide round Tuckers, Richard Wheeler, the Maltings Director.

Tuckers is an excellent place to visit, our guided tour being rounded of with a glass or two of "Reel Ale (4%)", which is brewed by Teignworthy Brewery, this being, in fact, within the Tuckers Maltings building; its entrance is the one on the right, in the photo above left, the other entrance, on the left, leading into the Maltings via its excellent shop, which has a very good selection of beers from the UK and elsewhere, including the full range of Edwin Tucker beers, which are brewed by Teignworthy, including: Edwin Tucker's Choice Old Walnut Brown Ale (6%) (£2.10 (50cl), in the Spring, 2005 Bottled Beer List, and in the Maltings' shop); and the vintage Edwin Tucker's Empress Russian Porter (10.5%) (£2.15 (27.5cl for the 2003 vintage in the shop, also in November, 2004), which is described on its label as a Baltic Entire, the label also stating that only 2,008 bottles of the 2003 vintage were produced. There is a list of beers available on www.tuckersonline.co.uk, from where they can be ordered on-line.

There are guided tours around Tuckers, every day except Sunday, from Easter until the end of October. In 2006, these cost £5.75 for adults, this including a small glass of a Teignworthy beer at the end. Tuckers is billed as a museum, but, in fact, many of the very old items on display are still in use. The shop is open throughout the year, every day except Sunday. Tuckers is host to the annual Maltings Beer Festival, the 2007 one being scheduled for the 12th to the 14th of April. It takes place on the Bottom Germination Floor.

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