Seven years later, Connecticut got its very own maltster as the The Thrall Family shifted their vast farm acreage from Shade Tobacco to barley, rye and wheat. They’ve already quadrupled the size of their malting equipment and are in the process of another expansion! Thanks to Andrea & Christian, grains can be grown, harvested and malted right in the Pioneer Valley! They had a hunch the latest wave of craft brewers would jump at the opportunity for more locally grown ingredients and they were right. Why am I telling you all this? Because brewing requires malted grain and while there has long been plenty of local barley available, the closest malting facility was - until very recently - waaaaay out in Wisconsin! In 2010, Andrea & Christian Stanley decided to change that by opening a small malting facility in Hadley, Massachusetts called Valley Malt. They are experiencing a purely synthetic form of spring called “malting”. Only they aren’t surounded by soft loamy earth. Within hours, these would-be seeds begin the process of unlocking their starchy food stores in preparation to sprout. This warm, cozy water bath is indistinguishable from the April showers that typically awaken the spring soil. It’s not real but they can’t tell the difference.
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