Almost any kind of grain can go in beer, from oats to wheat. Yet when we use the term ‘malt’, this generally refers to malted barley. The name comes from the malting process. This is where, after being harvested and dried, grain like barley is briefly germinated.
Germination essentially begins the growth process in a controlled way. Grain is soaked to get it growing, which activates enzymes that help convert starches into sugars. These sugars are what fuels the fermentation, as yeast eats the sugar and converts it to alcohol, farting out a bunch of carbon dioxide meanwhile. But we digress…
Returning to germination, just as the wet grain starts to sprout, the growth is rapidly halted by raising the temperature to shock the grain. By heating the grain further, this toasting (or ‘kilning’) creates new malt varieties. The more caramel coloured often appears in beers like red ales (think our old favourite, the Horse’s Head) and even darker tones lead to wintery numbers, such as our classic oatmeal stout: the Omen.