Base Malts are the foundation of your grain bill and play a big part in determining the overall malt character of your beer. Base malts are grouped broadly by colour, heritage/variety, and the beer styles they’re intended for as defined by the maltster. With so many high quality malts available, think about the kind of flavour and colour you want out of your base.

“Pale Malt” is a generic term used by maltsters to refer to a lightly kilned malt lending a light colour and low overall malt flavour. Confusingly, Pale Malt is often a Pilsner-variety grain. Pale Malt should be sought out for lighter coloured beers where malt complexity or richness is not desirable.

At the heart of European beers is good quality Pilsner malt. Pilsner malt carries a richer flavour than lower colour “Pale” malts and can impart a grainy, doughy aroma.

This group sits somewhere between “Pale” and “Ale” malts in colour and malt profile. If you’re designing an IPA or American Pale Ale recipe – or your recipe asks for “American 2-row” – these malts will contribute a brilliant light orange colour and a hint of malt toastiness to your beer.

‘Ale Malt’ is a catch-all for malt-varieties kilned to a slightly higher colour, lending a fuller body and a sweeter finish. This category includes English heritage varieties which are notable for giving a nutty and/or honey quality to the finished beer

While most of the malts in this category can be used as a base malt, they are typically used in a smaller proportion to alter the body and mouthfeel of your beer

Wheat malt is a welcome addition to almost any beer style. Wheat will help smooth the body of the beer, create a fuller mouthfeel, improve head retention, and round out the bitterness in IPAs. Wheat malt is light in colour, so even a large addition shouldn’t massively affect the colour of your beer.

Vienna malt is pale barley kilned to about twice the colour of pale or pilsner malts. This enhances the sweetness of the grain without contributing any toasty, roasty, or biscuity flavour. Incorporating Vienna malt into your recipe will enhance the malt sweetness of your beer, as well as slightly darkening the colour. Vienna has a natural nutty confectionary-type sweetness, typified by German Vienna-style Lagers.

Munich malt is a rich, toasty and biscuity malt. Munich is darker than Vienna malt and carries a more intense flavour. It’s a great option for giving a malt backbone to all beers but works particularly well in giving body and mouthfeel to lower alcohol beer styles.

Crystal malts are made by soaking then slowly heating barley, creating sugar crystals within the grain. The intensity of the heat and the duration of this process determines the finished texture and sweetness of the malt, ranging anywhere from a light honey flavour to a rich burnt caramel. Crystal malts should be used sparingly to maintain drinkability and to not overwhelm the hop profile of your beer.

These very dark crystal malts have a rich, potent flavour and aroma. Because of their dark colour, they can impart an astringent character if used too liberally in a recipe. Dark crystal malts add huge complexity to dark, malt-forward beer styles like Brown Ales, Stouts, and Belgian Abbey Ales

With character malts we’re refering to lightly roasted malts, aromatic malts, and any other specialty malt which is designed to amplify the flavour and bring colour and character to your beer. We recommend using these malts sparingly to not overpower the base malt and hop character of your recipe.

Caramel Munich (or CaraMunich) malts are a caramelised version of Munich malt, and therefore have an amplified rich toasty malt character. While technically a caramel malt, Caramunich malts impart very little sweetness and are great for building body and malt complexity in your beer, without overcrowding your beer and smothering hop aroma. The flavours associated with Caramel Munich malts range from toast and bread crust all the way to fruitcake and raisin, with Caramel Munich III the darkest and most intense of the range.

Biscuit malts have a crisp dry taste similar to a water cracker. They’re a great option for blending with richer and/or sweet malts to give your beer a dry finish

We carry a range of specialty malts for giving your beer a rich red hue. In some cases you can use these malts as 100% of your grain bill. For other varieties, we’ve had great results blending them with a very small amount of dark malt like Eclipse Wheat or Carafa III (1 – 2% of grain bill)

These include all of the malts that don’t fit easily into the other categories. Used sparingly these can cut through the sweetness of a beer and give your beer structure. Use these grains to amplify the malt richness and aroma of your beer.

There are many grains we can use in our brewing other than barley. Oats, rye, rice, corn, and many other grains and cereals can be used to modify the appearance, mouthfeel and finish of your beer. Many of the grains listed below are husk-less, meaning that they can cause problems with restricting the flow of your wort and leave you with the dreaded “stuck sparge”.

NOTE: Rice hulls can be used in any recipe with a large proportion of huskless grain to give structure to your filter bed and improve lautering. The recommended amount of rice hulls to use per recipe is approximately 10% of the volume of your grain bill.

Oats are an increasingly popular choice in pale ales, stouts and IPAs and work brilliantly in softening the mouthfeel of a beer. As a large proportion of your recipe, oats can lend a slick, almost creamy texture. We strongly recommend using Oat Malt instead of rolled oats – particularly if your recipe asks for greater than 10% oats – as this will improve recirculation and avoid your mash clagging together.

Ryecorn has a distinct earthy flavour and will give a subtle spiciness and dryness to the finish of your beer. Rye is huskless and a typically smaller grain, therefore it requires a finer mill setting.

Corn and Rice carry a sweet and neutral flavour into a finished beer. They are a popular option for cutting through malt richness when a lighter and drier flavour is desired. They are a common adjunct used in light international lagers and cream ales.

Dark malts give a range of rich, roasted flavours to your beer ranging from chocolate to bitter espresso. Even a very small amount will give significant colour to your beer. An important decision when coming up with a dark beer recipe is whether you want a bitter roast character in your beer or instead a darker colour, or possibly something inbetween.

Chocolate malts employ an extending roasting process while the grain is wet, ensuring that resulting roast character is not overly astringent. These malts lend a beautiful rich espresso coffee and chocolate flavour. We recommend combining these malts with other sweeter malts to complement the chocolate character

Huskless, or de-husked dark grains such as Carafa and Eclipse Wheat do not carry significant astringent character into your beer, as this harsh character is the result of the grain husks being roasted. You can expect these grains to contribute colour and a smoother roast character than Roasted Barley or Black Malt.

With the range of highly-modified malts available to us as brewers we can often find that our brewing wort is sometimes too fermentable, leaving a beer that is too dry and lacking body. Thankfully, most maltsters have remedied this by offering dextrin malts which will leave a higher proportion of unfermentable sugars, thus giving your finished beer more body. Dextrin malts can also aid head formation and retention in your beer.

Use these ratios as a guide for designing your own grain bills