More "truly local beers" to come...

[wortly]

Canada Malting will be processing NB barley in Montreal. This is a first for brewing on the East Coast. NS tends to be about 2-3 years behind NB and PEI for this sort of thing, so we may eventually see NS malt used in NS beers.

[mr x]

Cool. Maybe I'll grow a little out back and malt it myself. After a few brew, I should be able to make burnt barley.

[Brewnoser]

Interesting there is enough malting grade barley for Canada Malting to be interested? They are very critical buyers. Or is this just a special order from one farmer? If so, that's been done here before. NB usually just thinks they did something before NS. Even the wet hopping - people were assuming the Pumphouse under Nash was first in Atlantic Canada, when Paddy's Pub under Randy Lawrence did it years before.

Even Moosehead was started by people who split off from a Halifax brewery.

[wortly]

I am not sure whether it is just one farmer or not, but I think the amount is approximately 300 tonnes and it is from northern NB, so the transportation cost are low. Hard to say how much comes out as malt - they generally only use about 20%.

NB is without a doubt ahead on this one. As much as I would like to see it, it will be years before this is done using NS barley. All of the ground work has been done here, we just need a bit of capital and some grown-up discussions between the province's brewers.