Australia: Barley harvest in South Australia is one of the best this year; Joe White Maltings to benefit

The South Australia’s barley harvest of more than 2.5 million tonnes is expected to be the state's second biggest, providing a bonus for the nation's largest maltster, Joe White Maltings, the Advertiser Newspapers communicated on January 20. SA is a premier source of malt and malting barley.

Owned largely by SA grain growers through ABB Grain Ltd, the company produces close to $200 million worth of malt each year. About 80 per cent is exported to Asia.

It produces malt for Lion Nathan, Coopers and Malt Craft, which supplies many boutique brewers. Overseas beers made from its malt include Heineken, Tiger, San Miguel, Kirin, Sapporo, Asahi, Hite (Korea) and South Pacific Lager (New Guinea).

Joe White's chief operating officer Andrew Gee says: "It's the most interesting industry because of the complexity of the process. Every season is different and the malt is made from different barleys which all have to be malted in different ways."

Mr Gee says that, from his experience, most consumers do not realise malt is a critical component of beer. "Many people think beer is made out of hops," he says. "The ancient art of malting is one of the secrets of the world. Malt is so crucial to beer making it gives it all its colour, its flavour and taste."

Joe White will buy 500,000 tonnes of barley and make about 425,000 tonnes of malt at its nine malting plants around Australia this year.

Apart from malt, close to one million tonnes of malting barley will be sold by ABB Grain from SA to overseas brewers. ABB general manager marketing Nigel Officer says a reasonable proportion of the malting barley crop has been forward sold, mostly to Chinese brewers. The company has been forced to slightly reduce barley prices because East Coast barley exporters are selling at levels well below world market prices.

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