Canada: Trying to get malting barley quality a challenge this year

It’s been a challenging harvest for Canadian farmers this year with rain, snow and a good portion of the crop still out in the field in many areas, the Swift Current Online reported on October 9.

Brent Johnson farms east of Strasbourg and is Vice Chair of Sask Barley.

He says trying to get malting quality barley is a challenge this year.

“If you we’re lucky to get some off before some of the bigger rains, you probably do have some malt quality. I know that the quality specs are a little bit wider this year because there’s sort of a shortage of it. Definitely, the snow that we got early last week and just those four day rain events it's really, really hard to keep your germination through those type of things and Malt Barley is definitely suffering.”

He notes Saskatchewan farmers grow the type of barley the brewers want.

“We definitely grow some of the best brewing characteristic barley in the world in Western Canada. Some varieties are more favoured to the craft market, Copeland is one that’s more favoured to craft, where Metcalfe and Synergy are maybe more towards the traditional beer. I say traditional but maybe the big company beer.”

Canadian brewers use about 300,000 tonnes of malting barley per year.

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