Two beer glasses were waiting as each attendee of the Manitoba Malt Barley Field Day filtered past a table set up on the Elder Farm near Wawanesa, Man.
Both were golden yellow and only lightly hopped, to better gauge the quality of malt. Both were brewed under identical conditions. Only the variety was different. One was brewed based on the old industry standby, AC Metcalfe. The other, a variety so new that it has only recently been dubbed with its corporate moniker, AAC Prairie.
Around the room, attendees compared smell, colour and taste between the two. Maybe this one was a little brighter, or that one had more after-taste. The general consensus, however, described the two as comparable.
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For a variety that has been pegged as a possible successor to AC Metcalfe, it’s a positive finding.
Why it matters: New malt barley varieties have been a sticking point in the industry, with producers looking for yield and disease portfolio gains and maltsters reluctant to shift preferences.
AAC Prairie is one of several new malt barley varieties on the scene of a sector that has been generally slow to accept new genetics.
The variety, which was picked up by Canterra Seeds last year, was part of a three-way trial on the Elder farm. Other field-scale plots were planted to AAC Connect (another relative newcomer, albeit one that has already reached the recommendation list) and AAC Synergy as a control plot.
“I haven’t seen too much of a difference,” Jeff Elder said. “All the varieties in the trial seem to be growing well this year and looking good. It’ll be interesting in two or three weeks when they go through the combine.”
It is the third year for malt barley trials on the Elder farm, with all three featuring AAC Synergy and AAC Connect, and this year testing AAC Prairie.
The Canadian Malting Barley Technical Centre (CMBTC), based in Winnipeg, provides a yearly list of malt barley varieties it deems to have the best chances for marketing.
Historically, that list has seen little change. The traditional players, CDC Copeland and AC Metcalfe, were both registered before the turn of the millennium.
“Absolutely, it’s been difficult to get uptake of new varieties over the years by the malting and brewing industry, partly because we’ve had very successful varieties like AC Metcalfe and CDC Copeland,” said Peter Watts, CMBTC managing director.
Consistency is also key for brewing and malt companies, who rely on customers getting a product with the same traits, resulting in the same taste every time.
“Both domestic and international end users like what they know and it was working for them,” Watts said. “It does take a lot of work to get these new varieties introduced.”
AAC Synergy, for example, has been prized on the farm for its significant yield advantage and more robust disease platform, but is still being framed as an up-and-comer despite being registered a decade ago.
Uptake of that variety is “pretty good,” and it is now the second most popular option after CDC Copeland, said Watts, “but that shouldn’t take 10 years to get to this point.”
While it’s early days for AAC Prairie, “even for Connect, we don’t have that widespread acceptance yet.”
The first commercial shipment of AAC Connect to China was last year, according to Watts. On the domestic front, several companies in Canada’s beer landscape are tapping the variety, but it still has a distance to go.
As of the 2019-20 season, the two standbys were still king in Western Canada, according to the CMBTC. That year, the centre reported that 44 per cent of malt barley acres still went to CDC Copeland, while AC Metcalfe captured 23.7 per cent of the crop’s land base.
But the list is starting to shift, and more rapidly.
The same 2019-20 CMBTC report noted that 19.2 per cent of acres were planted to AAC Synergy that year, over three and a half times more than three years before. AC Metcalfe backslid from its spot as the most popular malting variety in the west. As of 2014-15, more than 38 per cent of malting barley planted was AC Metcalfe.
Other newcomers are also honing in. AAC Connect is touted for its greater yield (11 per cent more than AC Metcalfe and five per cent more than CDC Copeland), as well as moderate resistance to fusarium head blight, and good enzyme activity. It was registered in 2016.
AAC Connect is one of the few varieties to earn a spot on the technical centre’s recommendation list at the same time as it was made commercially available to farmers.
Elder said maltsters are starting to more easily accept new genetics.
“They are seeing now that there are improvements in the things they want to see in a malting barley, because they only care about how it performs in the malt house, whereas, as a farmer, I really only care about how it performs in the field,” he said.
“These new varieties show improvements in lots of areas that are acceptable to the farmer, that are acceptable to the maltster, that are acceptable to the brewer.”
There has also been a more proactive approach to market development, Watts said.
The CMBTC has started sending container shipments of new varieties to China, among other locales, so potential importers can do their own field trials.
The technical centre is also working to get varieties onto its list “as soon as possible,” rather than holding out for widespread acceptance, Watts said.
It established a variety acceptance committee several years ago as part of those efforts.
Rick Love of Canterra Seeds noted his company’s work in developing markets.
“With AAC Prairie, we have done some work producing 200 or 300 tonnes of product,” he said. “It ends up being put through a commercial malt house.”
The resulting malt is shipped to international customers to be put through its paces.
“Different brewers have different processes and different likes and dislikes, so the whole idea is to generate feedback loops so that we’re taking it from the researcher’s laboratory, through seed multiplication and increase, getting a critical mass and then, at the same time as we’re evaluating the agronomic potential for farmers, take this early generation … and have it evaluated by the industry,” said Love.
For AAC Prairie, that work started last year. Grain grown in southwestern Manitoba generated several hundred tonnes, which were then sent to a Canadian malt house.
The resulting product will be shipped overseas for evaluation through collaboration with the CMBTC and a barley exporter.
Canterra Seeds had planned to repeat the process this year but weather-induced late planting delayed those plans until 2023.
“We will continue to do this as we are introducing seed production of the variety, so hopefully by the time there is an adequate supply of seed to sell to farmers, the industry will have more information that they can then make informed decisions about its usefulness to the malting and brewing industry,” Love said.
The company followed a similar pathway with AAC Connect.
Both AAC Connect and AAC Prairie would be suitable for the “adjunct” brew market, where end users are supplementing fermentable sugars from barley with crops like corn or rice, Watts said.
“Three-quarters of the world’s malt goes into the adjunct brewing market, and that’s where our exports are going,” he said.
Early indications for AAC Prairie are good. So far, trials have put it at the top in terms of enzyme activity, compared to any variety it’s been grown beside, Watts said.
“But, like with all these varieties, the stars have to align with the farmer, the maltster, the brewer. That’s the challenge. It’s got to work for all three, because if it doesn’t work for one of them, it’s dead in the water.”
In Manitoba, AAC Synergy and CDC Copeland were the most popular varieties from the CMBTC recommendation list in 2020, according to Manitoba Agriculture. Those had 9.5 per cent and 8.2 per cent of barley acres, respectively. The newcomer, AAC Connect (6.2 per cent), and AC Metcalfe (5.2 per cent) were next in line.
