For brewers, malt is the foundation of every great beer — but as seasons change, so do brewing conditions, impacting how your malts perform in the brewhouse. Whether you’re scaling up for spring and summer demand or adjusting recipes for seasonal styles, choosing the right malt and understanding how it interacts with your process is essential for maintaining consistency and quality.
Here are some top tips to help you navigate malt selection and ensure smooth brewing, no matter the season:
1. Understand Seasonal Variations in Brewing Conditions
Temperature and humidity shifts in your brewhouse can affect everything from mash efficiency to fermentation. Warmer months often lead to higher brewhouse temperatures, which can influence enzyme activity and mash conversion. Adjusting malt choice — like selecting malts with a specific modification level — can help stabilise performance and maintain your desired flavour profile.
2. Select Malts That Match Your Brewing Goals
Not all malts are created equal. The choice of base malt, specialty malt, or adjunct will shape the body, color, and flavour of your beer. Here are some trusted options from leading maltsters to consider:
- Castle Malting – Renowned for Belgian-style base and specialty malts, ideal for classic ales, saisons, and lagers. Their Pilsen Malt offers clean, delicate profiles perfect for lighter spring/summer brews, while their Caramel and Biscuit malts add depth to seasonal ales.
- Simpsons Malt – Offering robust UK malts known for high extract potential and great consistency. Golden Promise® and Maris Otter® are excellent base malts with unique, bready-sweet notes ideal for traditional and modern styles. Their range of heritage and roasted malts can add complexity to seasonal specials.
- Weyermann® Malt – Masters of precision specialty malts, Weyermann®’s range is perfect for crafting authentic German styles or adding character to innovative brews. Their Pilsner and Vienna malts are ideal for crisp spring lagers, while Carared® or Caramunich® malts bring rich, smooth body to red ales and bocks.
3. Work Closely with Suppliers to Align on Specification
Specifications such as extract yield, colour, modification, and protein content can fluctuate slightly between crops and suppliers. Partnering with trusted maltsters like Castle Malting, Simpsons Malt, and Weyermann® ensures you have access to detailed specs and technical support, helping you adjust recipes and processes as needed.
4. Regularly Review and Optimise Malt Analysis
Take time each season to review your malt certificates of analysis (COAs) and align them with your brewing targets. Booking a malt optimisation session can help you make subtle adjustments that improve consistency — especially important when shifting into warmer brewing seasons.
5. Plan Ahead for Seasonal Brewing Needs
If you’re launching seasonal beers for spring and summer, now is the time to select malts that align with those styles. Whether you need light, clean malts for lagers or rich, complex malts for springtime ales, having a diverse malt portfolio gives you flexibility and creative control.
Partnering for Quality Malts
We proudly stock a wide range of malts from Castle Malting, Simpsons Malt, and Weyermann® Malt, giving you access to world-class ingredients for any brew. If you’re looking to review malt options or optimise your selection for the season ahead, get in touch today — we’re here to help.
👉 Explore our full malt range and book an optimisation session.