Montana is known for its grain, and Mark Hastings of Überbrew (https://uberbrew.beer) and By All Means (https://byallmeansbeer.com) is in the thick of it. Wheat is the number one crop statewide, and barley is number three, but despite the grains’ ubiquity, Hastings stayed away from Montana’s brewing grains for the first two decades of his brewing career. These grains, grown primarily for the needs of macro brewers, never quite nailed the flavor and technical performance that he was looking for. But recent strides in equipment for craft maltsters have opened the door for high quality malt at a smaller scale, and he’s slowly been making shifts.
It’s one thing to change malt in a beer with few expectations, and it’s another to do that in a beer with a long medal-winning pedigree, but that’s exactly what he did with the malt in Überbrew’s White Noise American-style wheat, a beer that has won two silvers and two golds at GABF and World Beer Cup from 2014 through 2022. He’s won a similar number of accolades for the black IPA Alpha Force Double Tap—GABF golds, bronze, silver, as well as top honors at Alpha King. In this episode, Hastings discusses:
Avoiding darker malt flavors in Black IPA
Shifting base malt from Maris Otter and Golden Promise to pilsner and vienna
Dialing in recipes using craft malt
Building hop combos through spider plots of flavors and aromas
Fermenting everything from wheat to clear IPA with London Ale III
Avoiding the “donut effect” in hoppy beers
Selecting malt for grassiness in wheat beer
Building a stable haze
And more.
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