Malthouse grows on a Minnesota farm
Vertical Malt is a craft malthouse in Crookston, MN. This is the heart of the Red River Valley, an area known for its fertile soil and grain production, and the home and farm of Tim Wagner and his son Adam Wagner. The two began homebrewing about 15 years ago, which led to conversations about malt and barley—a likely topic on a fifth generation farm.
“We used to grow barley. Maybe we should grow some barley again and play with it,” Adam had suggested. Before planting any, though, he began playing with barley in the kitchen, malting right on a tabletop using a bowl. As the dabbling got serious, they began to consider making malt to sell to local breweries and other homebrewers. Of course, going from idea to reality took time.
Malting is the process of steeping—or soaking—and germinating barley seeds, stimulating kernel growth to unlock plant enzymes that free up carbohydrates for fermentation. Tim and Adam tinkered with scraps of old farm equipment to develop a machine that made 200-250 pounds each batch. “We had actually produced malt that was…well, malt,” Adam recalled. The result developed a demand from local breweries, and inspired an investment in a more robust prototype.
Using malting systems from the late 1800s whose patents were long out of date, they came up with the model they still use today. 2014 was the first time they spent any real money on the project, and the first time they produced malt for commercial sale was 2016. They expanded in 2018-2019, adding another drum malter to double their capacity, which is now about 180 tons of malt a year. For perspective, that’s the daily capacity of an Anheuser Busch plant nearby in Moorhead, MN!
Vertical Malt is also near the University of Minnesota and North Dakota State University, where barley is a crop studied for farmers and for industry. Both places have pilot labs, too, to help develop processes to bring crops and products to market. This proximity has served Adam well, because he’s been able to observe pilot-scale grain handling processes that feed his imagination such as flaking, milling, pelletizing and, of course, malting.
Adam soon learned that malting itself is a whole science, and they decided to stick with it. “Right now, malting is the only value-add we do on the farm, but the original plan was to be fully vertically integrated, from farm to brewery,” Adam explained. Adam works at the malthouse except for a couple of times a year when things are really busy on the farm, during their harvests for sugar beets and grains. “And of course I’m involved in barley planting, because if there’s no barley, I’ve got nothing to malt,” he says. Generally, they plant about 150-200 acres, dividing up the acreage between the family farm and his brother-in-law’s farm to spread out the crop risk.
Once harvested, the grain goes to the local seed cleaner, Agrimax near Fisher, for cleaning, which luckily is just a few miles away. The total crop (usually about 10,000 bushels) comes back to the farm for storage. The barley comes to the malthouse as needed, where the malting system uses two vessels, one for steeping barley, and another for germinating and kilning it. A few more steps are involved in priming the malt for brewers, such as a final cleaning that is done in-house, and, if desired by the brewery, milling.
“What we're making now at our facility is about two tons per batch. We usually do two batches per week,” Adam says. Lately, they’ve cut back on production because of harvest. The team at the malthouse is just Adam and one part-time person.
Pre-pandemic they had planned on expanding malting operations, but are now looking to expand the entire scope of their work. “We're looking at flour milling at the same time,” says Adam. He’d love to partner with other small malthouses by custom milling a malted barley flour product or something similar. “There are good, useful ways to collaborate and try to help move the entire industry forward.”
Adam learned about AGC from fellow members Kevin Smith at U of Minnesota and Dan Murphy from Maltwerks, who both encouraged him to participate. Kevin has been part of a national USDA-funded naked barley project for a number of years which AGC joined last year; Vertical Malt has begun test-malting the grain from the field trials. At AGC’s Barnstormer event in the Twin Cities Adam offered samples of “hot steep”—a way to preview the flavors that will go into a brew—and he enjoyed the convivial environment among the network.
Adam sees a real need for a group such as AGC to counterbalance large-scale industry advocacy groups. For instance, when he attended a millers conference, the focus was on efficiency. “And I appreciate that,” he says. “But there's something that gets lost in translation from the growers who are maybe interested in some new off-the-wall variety. People out in the field, quite literally in the field, want to play around with Kernza® or heritage grains.”
And yet the structure of current markets makes it tough for farmers to experiment with new, unproven crops. “I think there's a lot of opportunity out there and I see AGC as a really good conduit for a lot of those conversations,” says Adam. We are so glad to have this new voice in our mix!
For more about Vertical Malt, check out this video by Media Kiln
