Barley may be partially replaced by legume
Date: 28.3.2007
#img_478#.< In Europe the industrial beer production is based on processing malt from malt houses that buy and process barley. The institution responsible for quality of the harvest and breeds is the Maltster Institute Brno, the Brewing and Malting Research Institute Prague branch, where interesting research projects are also dealt with. We were talking about the present and future of Czech malting with the head of the experimental analytical laboratory, Ing. Josef Prokeš.
**Is the situation really that critical? Does the danger that barley malt will not be the basic brewing base material exist?**
We can identify last year as a catastrophe. The 2006-2007 campaign was not secured in quantity and as far as the quality of the barley goes, it was the worst in the last fifty years. If the changes in climate and weather fluctuations continue, barley will become an increasingly risky crop-plant. Though I do not doubt the fact that quality beer will be brewed from barley either exclusively or from the major part in the future. A more wide-spread production of perennial barley should be supported and naked barley with higher starch content should shortly enter the brewing technology.
**How are Czech malt houses dealing with the situation: Do they have a problem at present to secure enough barley?**
They certainly do, though some major malt houses have secured their own consumption shortly after the harvest. At present, barley is imported from England or France, thus greatly increasing the costs. If there even is quality barley for sale, its price is at least double. There was so little spring barley last year that the malt houses processed perennial barley from abroad and our breweries have no choice but to brew from this. The path of replacing barley extract with sugar is not a cost-effective one.
**Has the bad harvest influenced the taste of beer?**
No influence on taste has been found. Though biologically damaged barley is processed, the toxin content has never breached the limit of the food regulations. These limits are defined at a very low level, practically at the bottom level of detection. The production or quality of beer is not threatened by the bad harvest, this affects the economics of the breweries. It is all about the art of the maltster that must play with the malt mixing and technology in such a way that the customer will not be able to tell that this year’s beer was brewed from something else. The malt is the spirit of the beer and brewing good beer from bad malt - well that is the magic and art of the maltster.
**And in the future our maltsters will perform even more magic.... How do you see this year’s barley harvest?**
That would be foretelling from a crystal ball! Despite the return of cold weather, there is plenty of time. If the barley is sown in March, the cards will be playing for us. If this is at the beginning of April, a good harvest will require very standard weather, if it should be in the last decade of April, and this was the majority of cases last year, problems start to arise.
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**But barley-processing is not the only possible track for European breweries, beer is brewed from other crop-plants throughout the world. **
In Africa they drink beer made from feterite, in America beer is predominantly brewed from defatted corn, in Asia they have yet other methods. Beer is brewed in about 140 states of the world, though only eighty have malt houses. It is not very well known that for example in Europe Switzerland or Norway don’t have a malt house, in these countries it is not possible to grow barley, so the entire malt consumption is imported. In earlier times also from the Czech Republic, but today our malt houses export mostly to the Eastern market like Thailand or Vietnam.
**Which crop-plants are according to the findings of your lab the best suited for malting? **
We are working primarily with barley, which is given by the history of our institute that was founded in Brno in 1920. We also solve other research projects and I am specifically working on the possibility of malting untraditional crop-plants such as spelt, which is important for people on a no-aleurone diet, also naked barley and naked oats. In Germany they have recently started adding buckwheat elutes to the wort and in one project I am researching the possibilities of producing a non-alcoholic buckwheat drink.
On a general basis, beer can be brewed from many crop-plants, because starch is contained in every grain as an energy reservoir. If we pass on barley, also wheat is suitable for brewing, in Germany the so called Weissbeer is made from it. And it cannot be ruled out that in some kind of worst-case scenario in the future beer will be brewed also from new crop-plants that will have an economic stability guarantee for their producers, like for example cowpea and chickpea, these can be interesting and relatively inexpensive.
#img_477#.> **Such a change would certainly have an impact on the taste of beer...**
Changes in the processed base material are certainly possible, though they must be gradual to ensure the consumers slowly get used to them. The beer must be brewed from something and with our national consumption it is not possible to import all of the barley. Something else must be processed that will grow even in a dryer climate. I cannot imagine that beer would be brewed exclusively from cowpea, but if the climate changes do occur, maybe some kind of beer lemonade will be made from cowpea.
**New beer flavors are appearing on the market even today, though they are not particularly successful with the Czech consumers. **
As far as beer is concerned, the Czechs are very conservative. Special beers such as honey, raspberry, blueberry or lemon lemonade beers are brewed, though they only have a minor share in the overall production. These are the products of smaller breweries that are unable to compete with the large ones in parlor or lager beers, so they enrich the market in their region by these specialties. There exists a more significant tradition in consuming these flavored beers for example in Germany or Belgium, but here we regard them as specialties - perhaps just one to taste what it is like.
**So what is your opinion? Will we really have beer brewed from Middle-Asian sweetpeas?**
Certainly not just from the sweetpeas. It is really too soon to answer this question, we are gaining experience with the new crop-plants for just a year and they must be thoroughly tested in our soil and climate conditions. But we should never say never, surprises may happen. If our climate should change significantly in the next ten to fifteen years, we should be ready. In the worst-case scenario the situation might be that producing quality barley will be not just an art, but also luck, therefore it would be definitely not wise to just wait for this.
Thank you for the interview.
Related articles
Climate changes will affect the taste of beer - Growing quality malting barley is becoming increasingly difficult due to the current sudden weather changes, maltsters are on the lookout for new crop-plants In a few years, Czech beer could have a somewhat different flavor than the one local beer consumers are used to (28.3.2007)
