Just outside the village of Gesto, the Byrne Craft Malthouse produces brewery grains from winter and spring barley grown on the family’s farm. Malt refers to grain that has been partially germinated to convert starches to sugars. Barley is the most common malted grain, with two-row barley – varieties featuring two kernel rows – being much preferred by most brewers.

Malt barley agronomy

“I grow two-row barley. We looked at six-row, but the brewers won’t touch it,” Byrne says, while inspecting his overwintered crop on a damp day in early March 2026. Newdale is Byrne’s spring barley variety of choice, while his winter variety is Calypso. The latter consistently outperforms the former in yields.

In total, the family farms five acres of spring barley and 10 acres of winter barley each year – a small acreage, but more than enough for their production facility to process. Winter barley also fits well into Byrne’s wider crop rotation, with a late June harvest providing opportunity for late-season soybeans.

“It grows all winter. But we can only grow the winter barley successfully up to maybe Sarnia. Otherwise, it gets too cold and it dies. Agronomically, fertilizer is the same. High fertility, and you have to have good drainage because this is heavy soil,” Byrne says. “We keep our nitrogen rates at 70 per cent of what we put on our wheat crop. Otherwise, our protein levels will get too high. You want to keep that protein down around 12 for beer. Yield for winter barley, last year we had 80 bushels, which is good. It’s more than I can utilize in the plant.

“My dad grew winter malting barley when I was a kid. It was a ‘wish we did, wish we didn’t have it.’ But I don’t think they had the agronomic knowledge given to them about growing the crop as much as what’s available today. There wasn’t as much about nitrogen rates, and a lot of that wasn’t in the picture. If it made good malt, great, and if not, we had pig feed.”

The malting process

The Byrne malt house is a multi-purpose facility where barley is germinated, heated, cleaned and bagged for sale. Many malt houses use tumbler systems for germination. Byrne opted for a more traditional floor system, in part because of the lower cost, and since managing small-batch craft quantities can be accomplished by a small number of people – Byrne and his sons Shaun and Ben, specifically. 

“We don’t have a cooling system, so only have about 10 or 12 weeks through the winter when we can malt because of the temperature. We have to keep the germination room at 58 F, no more than that. I want it cooler than that. And when the malt is on the floor it gives off heat,” Byrne says. “I keep it four to six inches on the floor, and the room heats up. As it goes through the modification process it gives off more and more heat. Tomorrow is going to be our peak day, and it will get up to 90 F. We have to keep turning it over to cool it down.

“There’s still floor malting in Ireland and Scotland. A little bit in England. That’s what we based our system on.”

Additional cost savings for operations in the malt house were secured through the purchase of a seed cleaner from the 1960s, as well as the salvage of materials – and the contact network – from Byrne’s time in grain bin sales and construction business.

Generating brewer interest

Byrne and his family first started malting in 2016, though a series of health problems and COVID delayed full operations until 2024. Currently they can produce around 400 25-kilogram bags (10 tonnes) of malt barley in a season, and supply several local breweries. There is capacity to expand with additional buyers, and Byrne is actively contacting potential new customers.

Getting more breweries onboard, however, is not easy, and it shows in the dearth of craft malt producers in the province. Indeed, Byrne is one of very few, if not the only small-batch malt producer left in Ontario.

From a brewer’s perspective, a major challenge with supporting craft malt is logistical in nature. Devon Lafebre, a southern Ontario brewer with 10 years in the industry, says it’s common for breweries to source a wide range of materials – hops, yeast, malt, equipment, etc. – from a single company, in an effort to save costs and reduce paperwork. Greater quality variation from malt barley grown and processed in Eastern Canada is also a problem.

“It’s almost like a one-stop shop. At this point, you almost have to have a portfolio of stuff we can pick from,” Lafebre says. “Our climate isn’t great for it either. The grain doesn’t do well in southern Ontario. The biggest thing for craft breweries is risk. They don’t have the same blending power or equipment that the big guys have.”

“If the consumer doesn’t care so much, there’s no extra selling feature towards going towards a craft malt that’s more varied but costs the same … especially now, with the margins in craft being so small.”

Dirk Bendiak, technical advisor for Ontario Craft Brewers, agrees practical challenges are a concern for small brewers. A lack of roasting capacity for craft malt producers – a step necessary to create different styles of malt – is another issue.

“Years ago, there used to be malt on this side of the country because distribution costs were so high. Growing it out west and bringing it here was a big deal,” Bendiak says.

“The other snag is, as soon as you bring Western Canada malt into the Ontario environment, it’s susceptible to humidity. It’s the same thing with hops. They grow here, but grow much better in the Okanagan region because it’s a desert.”

Still, he says there is opportunity for small-scale malt production to supply smaller-scale breweries.

“In Ontario, most of the little craft brewers are probably brewing under 5,000 hectolitres a year, which is quite small volumes. Probably 80 per cent of craft brewers are small brewers,” Bendiak says, adding there may also be marketing opportunities for products with all local ingredients.

Byrne himself remains optimistic. The malt business fits within their existing grain operation, they’ve had success with a few local breweries, and crucially, he enjoys the work. For now, he plans on knocking on more doors “to try and grow the business.

“We’re going to pick away at it. I know we’re going to get bigger with more sales. But we’re not going to be like Canada Malt in Montreal. The reality is we’re only going to be a niche small player,” Byrne says.

“Our sales are going up every year a little bit.”

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Total barley production across the Prairies was down by 10 per cent on the year, at 8.707 million tonnes, according to the CGC. Average barley yields were placed at 61.3 bushels per acre in Western Canada, which was down from 70.5 bu./ac. the previous year and the 10-year average of 66.4 bu./ac.

AAC Synergy was the most popular malting barley variety seeded in Western Canada, while the area seeded with CDC Copeland continued to decline. The popularity of newer varieties, such as AAC Connect, CDC Fraser and CDC Churchill, increased noticeably, according to the CGC.

The malting barley was generally of good quality, with average protein levels steady on the year at 12.3 per cent. That compares with the 10-year average of 11.9 per cent.

The average test weight was 65.0 kg/hL, which was lower than the previous year’s average (66.7 kg/hL) and the 10-year average (66.9 kg/hL). The average 1,000 kernel weight was 46.8g, which is higher than last year’s average (45.0g) and the 10-year average (45.7g).

The newer varieties, such as AAC Connect, AAC Synergy, CDC Fraser and CDC Churchill that have kernels larger than AC Metcalfe and CDC Copeland, contributed to the overall high average kernel weight.

Soil moisture and precipitation were lacking in many areas through the growing season but a stretch of relatively cooler temperatures during a portion of July helped relieve some crop stress, as did haze from wildfire smoke, according to the report. Harvest operations started relatively early in August, as crop development was ahead of normal across a good portion of the Prairies due to the hot and dry conditions throughout much of the season. Occasional rain in August did lead to some sprouting and prevented the harvest from being completed in a timely manner.

— Phil Franz-Warkentin is an associate editor/analyst with MarketsFarm in Winnipeg.

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The report by the Canadian Malting Barley Technical Centre (CMBTC), in collaboration with the Manitoba Crop Alliance, says new Canadian malting barley varieties can be grown successfully in Manitoba.

With yields and quality comparable to the check variety — AAC Synergy — the study found new varieties including AAC Connect, CDC Fraser, CDC Copper, CDC Churchill and AAC Prairie are the next generation of varieties for Manitoba growers, the CMBTC said in a release Friday.

“The study showed that these new varieties offer good agronomics and the high end-use quality traits that are the hallmark of Canadian malting barley,” CMBTC managing director Peter Watts said.

According to the Manitoba Crop Alliance, total barley acres, whether for feed or malting, have declined over the last two decades on “a combination of disease concerns, market forces and difficulty to meet malting grade.”

That said, seeded acreage reports from Manitoba Agricultural Services Corp., the provincial crop insurance agency, have found Manitoba barley acres steadied in the years 2020 to 2023, at a level between 365,000 and 400,000.

Producers in Manitoba have struggled with diseases such as fusarium head blight in malting barley, but with improved disease resistance packages, better fungicide products and improved management practices, fusarium has not been a significant issue in recent years, CMBTC said.

Producers growing malting barley varieties have the option of both malting and feed markets. With a malt barley variety, farmers gain an additional 2.5 million-tonne market that they could not access with feed varieties, the centre said. As well, malt barley generally offers a premium of around $1 per bushel or more.

“Manitoba is one of the best barley producing regions in the world,” Manitoba Crop Alliance CEO Pam de Rocquigny said in the same release. “This success can be attributed to climate and geography, and our advanced farming practices.”

Barley is a good cereals crop option, as it provides many benefits when included in crop rotations. It can be planted early in the growing season and is both competitive and high yielding. Furthermore, including barley in crop rotations can provide flexibility during harvest, as it matures early, allowing harvest to be spread out between crop types, the centre said.

“In combination, these attributes make barley a great option for farmers,” says de Rocquigny.

Registrations of new malting barley varieties for producer use in Canada in recent years led to the need to evaluate those new varieties in field-scale trials, under Manitoba growing conditions, to provide data for that province’s growers on how new varieties could fit in their cropping systems.

More details from the CMBTC study can be viewed on the Manitoba Crop Alliance website.

Several companies in Manitoba source malting barley to supply domestic and international markets including CMBTC members Cargill, Richardson, Viterra, Malteurop and Boortmalt, among others.

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Anglia Maltings operates seven malt facilities in the U.K., Poland, and Germany, with combined production capacity of 440,000 metric tonnes.

Privately-owned Richardson, which has operated since 1857, has been interested for 20 years in entering the malting business, but never found the right opportunity until now, CEO Curt Vossen said.

The deal fits Richardson’s strategy of processing the crops it buys from farmers, ranging from canola crushing and canola oil bottling to milling durum and oats, Vossen said.

“Now that we’re a food processor as well as an agricultural company, malting serves a fundamental purpose, it’s a natural fit,” he said in an interview.

Vossen said Richardson will buy European barley for its malting facilities.

He said Richardson will take time to understand the specifics of malting before deciding whether to expand the business.

The deal follows an announcement last week by French agribusiness InVivo of an agreement to acquire Australia-based United Malt in a $1 billion deal to create the world’s largest malt producer.

That deal, to be handled through InVivo’s Malteries Soufflet arm, was first proposed in March but now has approval from United Malt’s board of directors. Approvals from United Malt shareholders and regulators are still pending.

Among United Malt’s other assets in the U.S., Australia and the U.K., that deal would give Soufflet control of Calgary-based Canada Malting, which alone produces about 400,000 tonnes of malt per year.

Winnipeg-based Richardson, which employs over 3,000 people worldwide, handles and processes grain and oilseed crops. In 2021, it acquired Italgrani USA, North America’s largest durum wheat miller.

— Reporting for Reuters by Gus Trompiz in Paris and Rod Nickel in Winnipeg.

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The A$5 per share offer represents a 45.3 per cent premium to United Malt’s last close of A$3.44. Trading in shares of the company was halted on Monday.

InVivo, which acquired agribusiness peer Soufflet last year, has said it aims to become the world’s top malt producer within five years through external growth.

Earlier this year, it signed an agreement to take over Belgian malthouse Castle Malting, one of the oldest producers of the beer ingredient in the world.

Malteries Soufflet is the largest commercial maltster in Europe and the second largest globally.

United Malt disclosed it first received an offer of A$4.15 per share in December, followed by several others from the French firm. The latest proposal was made on March 14.

The company has granted Soufflet exclusive access to conduct a due diligence.

United Malt is the world’s fourth largest commercial maltster, producing bulk malt for brewers, craft brewers, distillers and food companies. The company has processing plants in Canada, the U.S., Australia and the United Kingdom.

United Malt’s Canadian assets are under the purview of Calgary-based Canada Malting, which produces about 400,000 tonnes of malt per year.

Canada Malting’s business includes malting plants at Calgary, Montreal and Thunder Bay, nine country elevators across the three Prairie provinces, and Country Malt facilities at Delta, B.C., Brampton and Calgary. The Country Malt packaging plant in Calgary was set up at the Canada Malting plant site in 2019.

United Malt was acquired by Australia’s GrainCorp in 2009 and spun off in 2020. GrainCorp retains an 8.5 per cent stake in the firm, while investment firm Tanarra Capital is United Malt’s largest shareholder.

Neither of the companies immediately responded to Reuters requests for comment on the offer.

— Reporting for Reuters by Harish Sridharan in Bangalore.

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“Producers have made their [planting] decisions for the most part. You might see people adjust their plans a little bit based on some of the fluctuations we are seeing in the market right now,” he said.

Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC), in its March 2023 report, pegged the amount of barley to go into the ground this year at around 7.4 million acres. That would make for a 5.2 per cent increase over what was planted in 2022.

Of note, Statistics Canada is scheduled to issue its planted acre projections on April 26.

While malt barley prices are rather steady at this time, Watt pointed to the volatility in commodity futures, noting the recent sharp drop in canola prices and the upticks in wheat.

“Barley prices remain relatively firm in Western Canada. That would still encourage farmers to keep barley in their rotations,” Watt said.

Over the last month, malt barley prices have remained steady for the most part, according to Prairie Ag Hotwire. Old-crop in Saskatchewan continued to sit at $8.10 per bushel delivered, with Alberta at $8.40. In Manitoba, the price slipped back $1.50 at $6.90/bu.

New-crop bids stood at $7.30-$7.70/bu. delivered in Saskatchewan and $7.40 in Alberta. Prices for Manitoba were $6.40-$6.90/bu.

— Glen Hallick reports for MarketsFarm from Winnipeg.

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Wheat “is not pulling barley prices with it, as far as we can see on our end,” Moric said, noting that a lack of demand has kept prices stable.

“Some of these malting companies are getting coverage locally. Based on the feedback we have been getting from the farmers, even with their local companies, there simply isn’t as much demand as there used to be,” he added.

Moric said a few days will go by in between dealing with barley and those farmers willing to part with it have been selling less volume.

Moric pointed to old-crop barley in particular to highlight the lack of demand, with a small gap between it and new-crop.

Old-crop barley, he said, was going for $8.50 to $9 per bushel picked up as of Monday, — the same range as on Friday.

Meanwhile, he said new-crop barley was fetching $7.50-$8/bushel on Monday, down from $8-$8.75 from the previous Friday.

— Glen Hallick reports for MarketsFarm from Winnipeg.

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The government in December enforced its third ban on alcohol sales since the outbreak of the virus to alleviate pressure on strained healthcare facilities after a rise in infections.

Unutilized stocks of barley, which is mainly planted for malting purposes in South Africa, stood at around 719,307 tonnes by December, 49 per cent higher than a year ago, according to data from the South African Grain Information Service.

Farmers say the ban is further hurting a sector still reeling from effects of drought conditions in 2019.

“The biggest impact will be on next year’s mandate to supply malt barley for the industry,” said Jose De Kock, chairman of the Barley Industry Committee, referencing to the 2021-22 season where plantings are due to start in around April.

“With the carryover that is already in the pipeline they are going to limit the mandate for next year, that is the fear,” he added.

Farmers could plant other crops, but De Kock said this may not be a complete solution with some of them in a crop rotation as part of disease and weed control measures.

“You can juggle a bit to the one side or the other side but you cannot not plant barley,” he said.

Anheuser-Busch InBev (AB InBev), which uses malting barley in beer making, lowered its mandate for the 2020-21 season to 380,000 tonnes from 475,000 tonnes in the previous season.

“There is the possibility that we will have to reduce the mandate further if the ban should continue,” AB Inbev’s director of agricultural development in Africa, Josh Hammann, said.

This may force farmers to sell excess barley as animal feed, which can be a 40-50 per cent markdown from the price of malting barley, said Abrie Rautenbach, head of ABSA’s AgriBusiness.

South African Breweries, part of AB InBev, is challenging the alcohol ban in court.

— Tanisha Heiberg is a Reuters correspondent in Johannesburg.

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The potential consolidation comes as France, the European Union’s largest agricultural producer, is trying to embrace environmentally conscious farming practices while vying with cheaper grain suppliers such as Russia.

A tie-up could also let InVivo, a grouping of 192 farmer-owned co-operatives, and century-old Soufflet better compete with rivals such as U.S. group Cargill and Germany’s BayWa.

“The combination of InVivo Group and Soufflet Group would lead to the creation of a French champion in agriculture and agribusiness with an international footprint,” they said in a statement.

A deal would bring together their international grain trading activities while also associating complementary businesses with limited overlap, including Soufflet’s flour milling and malt production and InVivo’s wine distribution and garden retail, they said.

The transaction price was not disclosed.

The deal, under which the Soufflet brand would be preserved, could close by the end of 2021, they said.

‘Positive for France’

The talks were welcomed by French Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire, who said in a statement sent to Reuters that “the creation of this group would be positive for France and French agriculture.”

That contrasted with Le Maire’s initial opposition to a takeover approach for French retailer Carrefour SA by Canadian convenience-store operator Alimentation Couche-Tard, with the minister citing food sovereignty concerns.

InVivo said it expected to finance the acquisition through its own funds, bank loans and potentially by selling stakes in some activities to partners.

InVivo has in recent years sold its animal nutrition division Neovia to U.S. agribusiness group Archer Daniels Midland, while expanding its garden retail business and entering wine merchandising.

It restructured its grain trading unit after losses, and developed a wheat and barley trading joint venture, Grains Overseas, with two other co-operative groups.

Soufflet has been the subject of takeover rumours in the past, partly because of the lack of a family successor to take over from Michel Soufflet, board chairman, and his son Jean-Michel, who is chief executive.

InVivo would maintain Soufflet as a separate entity within the group and no asset sales were planned, InVivo said.

Current Soufflet management would stay for a transition period expected to last a few years, it added.

— Reporting for Reuters by Sybille de La Hamaide and Gus Trompiz in Paris; additional reporting by Gwenaelle Barzic.

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Beijing said on Monday it would apply an 80.5 per cent tariff on Australian barley imports for the next five years, a move expected to all but halt flows from its main supplier.

“This should benefit Canada and France that have plenty of stock this year,” Helene Duflot of French consultancy Strategie Grains said. “China won’t have any problems finding supply.”

Australia has shipped around two million tonnes of barley in the current season to China, about half of its expected barley exports.

Several cargoes of French feed barley have been sold this month for export to China, partly in anticipation of the tariff decision, traders said.

Canada and France could see extra demand for their malting barley in particular as China has fewer alternatives to Australia in that segment, whereas feed barley faces competition from other feed grains such as corn, analysts said.

However, the fresh prospects for exporters are limited.

China had already shifted toward Canadian, French and Ukrainian origins during an 18-month-long probe into Australian barley, and further widened its options by approving Russian and more recently U.S. barley for import.

“I don’t think it’s a magical shift but at least it’s some additional demand,” Dave Reimann, a Winnipeg-based analyst at Cargill’s MarketSense division, said of Canadian prospects.

China’s demand for malting barley may be less than in previous years, with Brent Atthill, managing director of RMI Analytics, a Swiss consultancy specialized in brewing ingredients, saying demand for beer in the country could fall by 15 per cent this year during the coronavirus pandemic.

Australia, meanwhile, is seen turning to the Saudi feed barley market.

— Reporting for Reuters by Gus Trompiz in Paris, Michael Hogan in Hamburg, Nigel Hunt in London, Rod Nickel in Winnipeg, Mark Weinraub and Christopher Walljasper in Chicago and Dominique Patton in Beijing; writing by Gus Trompiz.

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