It’s possible that rice malt, in the years to come, never really grows beyond the gluten-free category—a niche, but an important one in which studious brewers have worked hard to raise expectations, often producing beers as tasty as those made from barley and wheat.
Yet there’s another fork in the road, and it’s one that could send rice malt into the brewing mainstream. In this alternate reality of the maltiverse, it becomes a compelling option for a much wider range of brewers who, otherwise, would mainly stick to barley malt and only use rice, if at all, to lighten up lager.
Recent research points toward that greater potential. It points toward a wider range of rice varieties that can be malted and made into beer. It points toward a wider range of aroma, flavor, and color contributions. It even points toward varieties with enough diastatic power to convert rice’s starch into sugar without adding exogenous enzymes—something that virtually all gluten-free brewers need to use today.
Many brewers may not even realize that rice can be malted. Knowledge about its potential is lagging because the brewing industry has mostly viewed rice as a cheap adjunct, says Scott Lafontaine, the food scientist overseeing the recent research at the University of Arkansas. The perception of cheapness isn’t quite right—rice can be more expensive than barley, at times—but that view basically reflects how the brewing industry has treated the grain.
Because rice “has been used as this by-product,” Lafontaine says, “we have lost the semblance of what variety does.”
Even the large malt suppliers that sell rice products to brewers don’t have the same level of specs that they can provide for barley malt. “We don’t know what varieties have different gel temperatures,” Lafontaine says. “We don’t know what we’re getting from different varieties in terms of extract. … We’re trying to look at, ‘Okay, are there variety-specific characteristics that are beneficial to brewers?’”
As it turns out, there are. Part of what’s striking, however, is that these are varieties that exist now—and nobody, so far, has tried to breed cultivars with malting and brewing in mind.
But what if they did?
Getting Granular
This eye-opening research is coming out of the University of Arkansas, whose state grows 40 to 50 percent of the country’s rice every year—more than double what’s grown in the second-biggest rice-growing state, California.
The Arkansas study published last year maybe didn’t grab brewers’ attention in the way one about hop aroma or lager yeast might. However, to better comprehend the possibilities, it’s worth pondering the findings.
Led by doctoral student Bernardo Guimaraes and Lafontaine—in collaboration with the USDA Agricultural Research Service and Berlin’s VLB brewing school—the team malted, mashed, and tested 19 different varieties of rice. While there have been a handful of studies over the years looking into malting rice, this was the first time that anyone had malted and tested so many different types.
At every step of the way, they analyzed each variety for variables that matter to brewers and maltsters—specs such as protein, enzyme content, gelatinization temperature, and diastatic power, not to mention color.
Among the more interesting findings:
- Maybe you won’t need that cereal cooker? The study found several varieties with gelatinization temperatures that start around 149°F (65°C) and peak around 158°F (70°C), suggesting that it should be possible to gelatinize them—even unmalted—in a typical infusion mash.
- Malted purple rice made red-colored wort, suggesting it could be useful for contributing vibrant color to beer or other drinks. And because that color doesn’t come from Maillard reactions—unlike caramel malt, for example—beer made with it should be less prone to oxidation and stale flavors.
- Most of the varieties tested had ample amino nitrogen and soluble protein to promote healthy fermentation.
- Certain varieties had enzyme packages fully capable of saccharifying their starches, meaning it may not be necessary to add exogenous enzymes to beers made from 100 percent rice malt.
While the February 2024 study didn’t evaluate aroma and flavor, the research team has been doing that more recently for an upcoming paper—one analyzing beers made from 100 percent rice malt. What they’re finding, Lafontaine says, is that aromatic rice varieties can lend their qualities to finished beer. Meanwhile, nonaromatic varieties can lend their neutrality—which can also be desirable to brewers.
Before getting into the wider implications, let’s briefly consider these findings in more detail and what they could mean in the brewery.
Gel Temperatures
For starches to become fermentable sugars, they must first be gelatinized.
Brewers who work with rice—unless they’re using pre-gelatinized forms, such as flakes or syrup—know that rice typically has a higher gel temperature than barley. That’s why we use cereal cookers to heat that rice separately, planning for a gel temperature of perhaps 171°F (77°C). (At Ghostfish, the award-winning gluten-free brewery in Seattle, head brewer Reid Ackerman says he recently received rice malt with a max gel temperature listed at 181°F/83°C.)
As it turns out, however, the range of gel temperatures can vary significantly among different rice varieties. Several types the Arkansas team studied had ranges sitting squarely in the 150s°F (66–71°C)—meaning that it could be possible to mash them at the usual temperatures without needing a separate cereal cooker, and without needing to resort to flakes or syrups. In that case, a brewer could simply mill the rice along with the barley malt and mash them together.
Again: None of these varieties, so far, have been bred for malting and brewing. These findings, Lafontaine says, are “challenging these historical notions about what this raw material is.”
Color
Craft brewers enjoy playing with color, whether it’s using specialty malts, vibrant berries or other fruits, or more unusual ingredients such as spirulina (green) or butterfly pea flowers (purple-blue). Rice can be one of those toys.
The red and purple rice varieties get their color from anthocyanins—the same compound that provides color to blackberries, red grapes, purple corn, and many other fruits and vegetables. While the red varieties didn’t ultimately contribute much color to the wort, the purple ones did—“an amazing red color,” Lafontaine says.
One obvious takeaway is that brewers could use those darker rice types to put some color into beer. (Depending on the type and how it’s used, that rice could also provide fermentability and flavor—black sticky rice, for example, could provide a fruity flavor.) Unlike specialty malts that can lend a reddish hue, the color from rice doesn’t come from Maillard reactions, so it wouldn’t be prone to the oxidative flavors that can trouble caramel malt.
Nitrogen & Protein
Besides rice’s relatively low character and enzymes, brewers who use rice also expect it to be typically low in nitrogen and protein, potentially requiring additional nutrients. The Arkansas findings suggest that it doesn’t have to be that way.
Many of the varieties they studied had free amino nitrogen (FAN) and protein levels that were higher than previous studies had found—levels roughly comparable to barley malt. That suggests that there may be more varieties better suited to brewing and fermentation—or that those varieties could be developed.
Enzymes & Efficiency
Compared to barley, rice is low in the amylase enzymes that help break starches into sugar, increasing fermentability. However, those aren’t the only enzymes that can do that.
All the rice varieties in the study had high amounts of limit dextrinase, a de-branching enzyme—it breaks down more complex starches and contributes to greater fermentability. Notably, limit dextrinase is heat-sensitive, preferring a mash between 131 and 145°F (55 and 63°C). That means the trusty old single infusion at 152°F (67°C) isn’t ideal, but resting first at a lower step can optimize that enzyme.
While rice is low in other enzymes that drive barley’s diastatic power, “what we find is if we implement that low mash rest, we still get complete saccharification,” Lafontaine says.
That holds true for beers made from 100 percent rice malt, he says. “But I think because we have that limit dextrinase there—and because we create these linear chains with a very low mash rest first, and then we go into that saccharification rest—we see success. So, that’s the importance of understanding the raw material.”
Rice malt isn’t as efficient in the mash as barley malt, topping out around 72 percent extract (versus 80 percent for a typical base malt). However, Lafontaine says, “To me, that was already promising. Again, we have bred barley … for hundreds of years to perform in this way. No one has ever considered malting rice.”
Aroma & Flavor
Led once again by Guimaraes, the upcoming study on beers made from 100 percent rice malt is looking more closely at their sensory aspects, including aroma and flavor.
Some rice varieties, like basmati and jasmine, are aromatic, while others have little or no aroma. What the Arkansas researchers are finding is that those properties—aroma/flavor or the lack thereof—generally carry over into malt and then wort.
So, would you want your rice malt to contribute some aroma and flavor, or not? In brewing, either choice is valid—a super-clean, “super-dry” Japanese rice lager, for example, wouldn’t be quite the same if it smelled like flowers and popcorn.
Some varieties contribute a corn-like flavor that’s adjacent to barley malt, Lafontaine says. Notably, the main aroma compound responsible for the aromas of basmati and jasmine rice is 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (2AP). It can smell like fresh-baked bread (which also has 2AP), like vanilla … or like buttery popcorn.
“It could overlap with diacetyl,” Lafontaine says, “but we find it characteristically different.”
Some of those red, purple, and black rice varieties, meanwhile—in addition to color—also contribute fruity character.
“It was really interesting,” he says. “If a brewery didn’t want to stray too far from traditional beer flavor—traditional meaning barley-malt beer flavor—I think we could come up with varieties that would overlap. If we wanted to use rice to develop new flavor, I think that is also an opportunity.”
A Malternate Future?
One premise of the Arkansas study is that American brewers may sooner or later need alternatives to barley—and in certain parts of the world, arguably, they’re already needed.
Barley prices spiked globally in early 2022 after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which compounded global supply-chain problems and a disastrous North American harvest. Climate change, meanwhile, will continue to disrupt yields while shifting to places where barley can grow.
“I think my definition of beer is that it has to contain malted grain,” Lafontaine says. “And if I look 20 years out, I start to think about, ‘What’s the solution here, if in North America we can no longer grow barley?’”
There are other options, such as rye and winter barley, but rice is attractive for another reason: It yields double to triple what barley does per acre, by weight. There may be a point at which rice malt becomes more economically viable in North America—but even if it doesn’t: What about all those parts of the world, today, where rice grows well but barley can’t? Brewers in those countries are heavily dependent on imported malt, and they have been for years.
“I think this is actually really important for the Asian market,” Lafontaine says, “in the sense that when we look at where barley is grown and who’s importing barley, barley is not grown in the places where a majority of the beer is made.”
So, what if they could malt what grows there, instead?
Most of what brewers worldwide know about rice hasn’t strayed far from the methods developed by Anheuser-Busch in the 1870s. Properly cooked, it adds fermentability and lightens body, lending a crispness. Not many brewers have asked it to do more than that.
Virtually all rice grown today is meant to be milled into food. That includes the roughly 9 percent of the U.S. crop that goes A-B InBev brands such as Budweiser and Bud Light. That rice is about 30 percent of Budweiser’s grist, and A-B wants it starchy, neutral, and inexpensive.
Of course, none of that is malted. There’s no incentive for rice growers to meet the specs of any maltster—not yet, anyway.
Because all that rice is milled for food, it’s also de-hulled. So, here’s another thing brewers may not realize: If you’re going to malt rice instead of eat it, there’s no need to remove the hulls—the same ones that many of us use to aid lautering. Rice malt that’s kept its hulls provides the same benefit.
Outside the gluten-free niche, meanwhile, very few brewers have taken rice malt for a spin. That’s changing because the Arkansas study has spurred wider interest. One of the next steps is to scale up the malting—from one kilo to 250—to better evaluate the malting potential, and then to get that malt into the hands of brewers.
One of the first breweries to reach out to Lafontaine and offer to trial some different rice malts was Allagash in Portland, Maine. Another was Boston Beer.
Allagash R&D brewer Patrick Chavanelle says he’s particularly interested in trialing beers made with 100 percent rice malt, to see what that beer is like.
“I’m not entirely sure what to expect from a fermented beverage like that,” he says. “Our real priority is to support the work Scott and team are doing, with the added benefit of getting to know a raw material in its infancy.”
Photo: Courtesy Epiphany
The Paddy’s Potential
Not much is sacred in craft breweries today when it comes to ingredients but, to some extent, the Reinheitsgebot is still in our DNA. American microbrewing, after all, came up as a reaction to samey, omnipresent Bud-Miller-Coors. For years, adjuncts would disqualify you from Brewers Association membership.
More recently—and amid growing interest in craft lager—more independent breweries are embracing rice and corn as adjuncts. And while some brewers are taking advantage of heirloom corn and its colors and flavors, rice has yet to get the same sort of attention.
That may be about to change.
“We’re already seeing benefits and promise with rice, and this grain was not bred to do this,” Lafontaine says. “We’re already getting comparison on extract [with] barley. We’re already getting similar extracts, and we already have varieties that are self-saccharifying.”
A few previous studies analyzed malted rice in a handful of varieties, but nobody ever analyzed 19 of them, and not to this level of detail. Next, the Arkansas team plans to study 250 more varieties—to be grown this summer and analyzed next winter. They’re acquiring the seeds from the USDA’s national germplasm collection—a fascinating archive of the world’s biodiversity, including crops that nobody grows anymore.
If they found so many surprises in a collection of 19 rice varieties, who knows what they’ll find in 250? We won’t see results until 2026, at the earliest, but that’s much faster than the decade or so that it takes to breed a new variety. Plus, that broader base of information will be invaluable to future breeding efforts—breeding that’s geared toward malting and brewing, as well as yield and agronomics.
Lafontaine has traveled around Arkansas and the Mississippi Delta visiting rice farms, and “the only brewer that rice farmers have worked with is A-B,” he says. “I think a lot of them don’t even realize how big the craft-brewing market has gotten and the potential that exists there.”
Yet there’s a near-total lack of communication between rice farmers and craft brewers—and those brewers don’t understand rice in the way that they understand barley malt. “But those needs need to be communicated effectively, and those partnerships need to be built, right? That’s not something that just happens.”
That might also involve, eventually, brewers contracting with local rice growers for certain types of rice.
“I saw the hop industry change, where brewers’ needs really influenced that hop agriculture, hop breeding,” Lafontaine says. “And I think we’re very fortunate because we lived through that—we saw hops go from just bitterness and stability to the main show. We saw that change of an ingredient and how it could revolutionize an industry.”
Today, IPAs can be found worldwide, and many casual drinkers can name their favorite hop varieties—hard to imagine just a couple decades ago.
“That connection to agriculture really still speaks to me about how our raw ingredients shouldn’t be something that’s in the background,” Lafontaine says. “They should connect us to our place. They should connect us to the people putting in the work to grow that material.”
Dig into the Science
The Arkansas team’s malt study is titled “Investigating the Malting Suitability and Brewing Quality of Different Rice Cultivars,” by Bernardo P. Guimaraes, et al. Published in February 2024, it’s freely available at mdpi.com.