Craft beer has been a wildly effective liquid ambassador for Alberta’s malting barley. The province’s craft beer industry has become emblematic of the high-quality barley grown in this province.

If harvest is a party, then Fusarium head blight (FHB) is best left off the guest list. When it comes to malt barley production, an outbreak of FHB can cost a farmer malt status due to kernel discoloration, microbial load and the presence of even a low level of the mycotoxin deoxynivalenol (DON).

With the explosion of craft brewing comes a food waste problem. Spent grain accounts for about 85 per cent of brewing byproduct. Big breweries generate thousands of tonnes daily that is sold or given away as animal feed. Craft breweries, especially those in urban areas, don’t produce enough to make its distribution as feed financially viable. They have little choice, but to dispose of it as compost.

Held in late July of 2019, the Made in Canada Crop Tour was conducted with the co-operation of four industry groups to help create just such barley buy in.

Encompassing land in the Calgary, Strathmore and Drumheller areas, the multi-generational Hilton Ventures grain farm produces high-quality malting barley, and family members operate Origin Malting and Brewing.

​In 2017, Wade and Scott McAllister realized their mutual dream of seeing a craft beer brewed exclusively using barley grown on their family farm.

Jochen Fahr was born to brew. GrainsWest recently sat down with Fahr over samples of his two bestselling beers, Fahr Pils and Fahr Hefe.

In 1993, The Alix Malthouse commenced operation as WestCan Malting, notably producing malt for Anheuser-Busch.

Brian Sewell’s first entrepreneurial venture was anything but what you’d expect from a teen who’d decided from day one to take up the family business. But for Army of Darkness Skateboards (AOD for short), Brian’s mobile skate shop and manufacturing company, it rolled straight out of his farming experience.

With certain pockets of Western Canada being dealt losing hands at harvest year after year, grain drying is moving from a “nice to have” to a “need to have.”