Canada’s barley, malting and brewing industries are keeping tabs on a new brewing process that could reduce demand for high quality malt as an essential brewing ingredient.
Enzyme-assisted brewing uses commercial enzymes to promote fermentation in malted or unmalted barley, meaning brewers can reduce their reliance on finished malt or, in some cases, eliminate it ent i rely from their brewing process.
Enzyme-assisted beers are typically lighter and less flavourful than traditional malt-based brews, but consumers in some beer markets prefer lighter beers that have a mild flavour.
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Rob McCaig, managing director of the Canadian Malt Barley Technical Centre in Winnipeg, said products such as Ondea Pro have the potential to erode demand for finished Canadian malt.
“We want to know what percentage (of sales) maltsters could lose on this, so we have to take a really good look at it,” said McCaig.
“Realistically, I think the big brewers will be a bit apprehensive about getting into (maltless brewing) in a big way.… I see this enzyme system really being taken up in … the development of new brands … and by smaller breweries.”
Commercial enzymes are already widely used in China and are beginning to generate interest in other parts of the world as well.
Chinese brewers have so far added enzymes only to low quality malt, but in theory finished malt could be eliminated from the brewing process completely.
Using 100 percent unmalted barley would keep brewing costs in check but could have significant implications for the North American malting industry.
Brewers in Europe and North America are already experimenting with maltless brewing using a heat-stabilized pre-mixed enzyme product called Ondea Pro from Novozymes.
Most industry stakeholders agree maltless brewing will never displace traditional brewing, but they recog- nize that it could significantly affect the barley and malting industries.
McCaig said a product such as Ondea Pro could benefit the Canadian barley industry, particularly in years when high-quality barley is in short supply.
Combining 80 to 90 percent finished malt and 10 to 20 percent unmalted barley could stretch limited malt supplies, reduce brewing costs and produce beer that retains a traditional malted flavour.
“If we have another incredibly horrible crop like we did (last) year, we could still say to buyers of Canadian malting barley, ‘look, we can’t sell you any malting barley this year that you can malt … but you can still buy malt barley out of Canada, and use the (enzyme process) at 10 or 20 percent.”
Global supplies of malt quality bar-l ey were tight last year, largely because Canada and Australia, two of the world’s biggest producers, had poor barley harvests.
Exports of malting barley and finished malt were down significantly in North America.
The Canadian Malting Barley Te chnical Centre is conducting studies on enzymatic brewing to learn more about beer quality and its potential impact on Canadian maltsters and Canada’s foreign barley markets.
McCaig said the centre is comparing beers derived from 100 percent malted barley, 100 percent unmalted barley and combinations of malted and unmalted barley.
All the beer will originate from the same shipment of AC Metcalfe barley.
“We’re going to do some blending … and then compare all these beers to se how comparable they are,” McCaig said.
“You can’t produce the same type of beer from 100 percent enzyme brewing as you can from 100 percent traditional malt brewing. We want to see where that crossover is. Is it 30 percent? Is it 20 percent? Or is it 50 percent? We want to give maltsters an idea of what their risk is.”
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