With no malt houses in New York, Hawley's new venture to fill unique niche at the right time

You can't brew beer without malt, which is something Ted Hawley thinks legislators forgot about when they passed a farm brewing bill last year that will eventually require ales and lagers labeled "New York Beer" to contain 90 percent locally grown ingredients.

"They just thought they could grow barley in New York," Hawley said. "They didn't know there was another step, which is malting. It has to be malted before you use it in a brew. So it was kind of interesting that they put this huge amount of effort into requiring 90 percent ingredients from New York, but there's no way it can be produced with 90 percent ingredients."

The timing of the bill was fortuitous for Ted and Patricia Hawley, who started planning a year earlier to open a malt house on their farm off Bank Street Road, Batavia.

It will be the only malt house in New York, though the Hawleys are sure others are coming with anticipation of a craft brew boom in the state thanks to the new rules.

Malting is the process of converting barley or other cereal grains into malt, for use in brewing, distilling, or in foods and takes place in a maltings, sometimes called a malthouse, or a malting floor. The malting process starts with drying the grains to a moisture content below 14%, and then storing for around six weeks to overcome seed dormancy. When ready, the grain is immersed or steeped in water two or three times over two or three days to allow the grain to absorb moisture and to start to sprout. When the grain has a moisture content of around 46%, it is transferred to the malting or germination floor, where it is constantly turned over for around five days while it is air-dried. The grain at this point is called “green malt”. The green malt is then kiln-dried to the desired colour and specification.[12] Malts range in colour from very pale through crystal and amber to chocolate or black malts.[13]

The sprouted barley is kiln-dried by spreading it on a perforated wooden floor. Smoke, coming from an oasting fireplace (via smoke channels) is then used to heat the wooden floor and the sprouted grains. The temperature is usually around 55 °C (131 °F). A typical floor maltings is a long, single-storey building with a floor that slopes slightly from one end of the building to the other. Floor maltings began to be phased out in the 1940s in favour of “pneumatic plants”. Here, large industrial fans are used to blow air through the germinating grain beds and to pass hot air through the malt being kilned. Like floor maltings, these pneumatic plants are batch processes, but of considerably greater size, typically 100 ton batches compared with 20 ton batches for floor malting.

Legislators are the stupidest people to make laws.

Carl Paladino was running for Governor. He told a story on his campaign about a company in the middle of new york that was touted as a great success for the political leader who was running there.

But there was a competing business that already existed.

So when the government stepped in and offered 15% discount to start up a new company, and loans for new equipment, it put the old company at a disadvantage. They could not compete having to pay the full 100% taxes running old equipment.

So... the old company with 300 employees went out of business. The new company with 100 employees made a quick buck but then went out of business themselves, because they had no experience in that area.

So... the governemnt stepped in, spent millions of dollars and destroyed an entire town industry, and then the politicians went on-air and touted their success at ‘creating jobs’

“So it was kind of interesting that they put this huge amount of effort into requiring 90 percent ingredients from New York, but there’s no way it can be produced with 90 percent ingredients.”

Government hacks that have no idea what they are doing an passing laws is not a surprise to anyone.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.