JUNE 9, 2019

As a brewery that prides ourselves in using as much local produce and ingredients as we can, sourcing local malt is the next step in providing a truly local product. And so, we are proud to finally announce that we now brew with malt from Carolina Malt House!  To kick off this new relationship, we took a staff trip out to their production facility in Cleveland, NC to see first hand how they turn Carolina barley into brewer’s malt.

To start, CEO Aaron Goss, Vice President Steve Bauk and Sales Manager Henry Richardson gave us all a tour of their building. Aaron started home brewing during law school and spent 5 years practicing law, and Steve had a background in sales and marketing for Cheerwine. They had worked on an app together at first, before deciding to step into the booming brewing business. While there were an abundance of breweries in the Carolinas, there was yet to be a local malthouse. Many of these breweries were shipping in their grain from hundreds to thousands of miles away when there was a wonderful grain source right in their backyard. Thus, the idea for Carolina Malt House was born!

After much planning and an informative visit to Germany, Aaron and Steve officially opened Carolina Malt House for production in May 2018. Within one year of opening, they had won third place in the Craft Brewers’ Guild Malt Cup. They do this by only accepting the best malt in the area, and only sourcing barely within 30 miles of their production facility. 

The best part is, Carolina Malt House is just getting started. The facility has room for many more production lines, but even without extra equipment they’re already supplying malt for breweries in North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia. Their germinating room is top of the line, and they take extra precaution with special air-locked chambers to keep their product fresh. Plus, the team constantly checks the product for quality, measuring some 15 million data points per batch of grain.

After a small break to ride their zip line and to sip on some beer made with Carolina Malt, we then took a “field” trip (get it?) to see the source of it all: A local farm that supplies barley to Carolina Malt House. Some of us even got to ride a combine with Farmer Ray to get an up-close look at how to harvest barley! Aaron and Ray taught us how they drill straight into soil, which creates no erosion and therefore lessens the potential for a dust bowl effect. The crops are even more shielded from rainfall at harvest by Lake Norman. The respectful relationship between Aaron, Steve, Henry and the farmers proves how seriously they take the process of providing the very best quality malt from start to finish.

We’re proud to support local, and we’re proud to use Carolina Malt in our beer! Let us know if you can taste the difference in your next glass of Cruisin’ Down the Street in My 64 IPA, Majestic Session IPA and Fort Millsner. Cheers!