Let’s do some malthouse math for a minute.
Yes, we’re aware that you probably told Mrs. Jones, your 4th grade teacher, that you would never actually use math in real life. You may have even whined during science classes. But that was before you became a craft malt aficionado who, (albeit grudgingly,) realized that both math and science are actually key components in the business of making good beer and good spirits, and you most definitely aren’t whining over that glass of craft whiskey in your hand. So…you probably owe Mrs. Jones (and likely your high school biology teacher) an apology, accompanied by a high-quality craft beverage.
While the two of you sip away, we’ll run you through some of the numbers that created that craft cocktail you’re enjoying.
so much malt
125 total batches. At 20,000 lbs of grain per batch, that’s 2,500,000 lbs rolling out of those drums and into your beer. And we’re not done growing yet! If we ran all 3 drums at full capacity all year, we could do 156 batches of malt, equaling around 3,000,000 lbs of grain. We’re almost there…but this year’s malthouse construction combined with some learning curves around running our newest drum, meant we weren’t running all drums all the time. When we do, there will be all kinds of magnificent malt coming your way.
1,000 deliveries. Magnificent malt is no good unless it makes it into your beautiful brews and divine distillations, so we went out to you 1,000 times to make it happen.
350 pick-ups. Teamwork makes the dreamwork, and many of you made our lives easy by swinging by the malthouse for your orders. The honest truth of it? We just love getting to see you.
Trendsetter Tips
When you’re sending two and a half million pounds of malt out the door, you start to notice some trends - and we’re not talking about mom jeans and mullets. More like Malted Oats and Munich Wheat.
Folks like lager. Last year, we malted 53 batches of Genie Malt, our biggest seller. This year, we only did 39. Why? Because Pilsner was up. We ran 23 batches of Pilsner Malt and talking to our brewers, most of that Pilsner was going into lagers, a welcome relief for some from the IPA craze of the last few years.
The IPA craze (and haze!) isn’t going away. Malted Oat sales grew by over 50% this year and most of them…yep…they’re going into your hazy IPAs.
Whiskey is where it’s at. Our distiller’s malt sales were up by 70% over last year. We’ve got a…spirited…bunch of customers.
It’s not just the numbers
We’ve hit a few milestones that have nothing to do with pounds of malt or deliveries down I-25, but they’re a pretty big deal for us, nonetheless.
Our build-out is complete.
A lot more goes on in the malthouse than just bags out the door. Perhaps our biggest success this year was finishing construction. For the entire seven years that we have been in operation, we’ve been growing, building, and moving malt - often literally, from one side of the malthouse to the other as we figure out the best system to add equipment, run a production line, serve our customers, and keep our sanity.
This year (finally!) after seven straight years we’re done. While there will always be maintenance and improvements, we’ve completely built our facility.
Will we miss making malt schedules around concrete work and fire sprinkler tests?
Nope.
We’ve got new malts for you to meet!
Worrying less about construction logistics allows us more time for innovation, and this year we rolled out two new malts, with the newest hitting the shelves just this month. Please welcome Munich Wheat and Chit Malt to the Root Shoot family. Wanna give them a try? Just shoot us a line!
We’re hoping to continue the winning streak.
In March, we had a pretty impressive win at the Malt Cup, and we’re gearing up for 2024’s competition. Samples have been submitted and over the next months, the judges will be doing their work. While any business enjoys winning awards, for us the real benefit of the Craft Malt Cup and our work with the Craft Maltsters Guild is the challenge to always get better.
And with construction over, an excellent staff on board, and a solid harvest sitting in our silos, that’s our focus for next year. Doing what we do, and doing it just a little better, every day, year in and year out. We make malt so that you can craft your liquid art.
Make Mrs. Jones proud, one craft cocktail at a time.
- Your Root Shoot Malting Team
