As brewers, we get four (plus?) ingredients with which we hope to make an example of one of the most majestic creations mankind has stumbled into. I won’t argue which of the four is the most important, but I’ll tell you, if it ain’t got malt, it ain’t beer. We are so fortunate these days to have such a dizzying array of malts available to the homebrewer and commercial brewer alike, it can border on scary trying to pick the right grain bill for your next ever-closer-to-perfect brew effort.
Of the plethora of hairs split over a grist—and there are many—you may have seen the option for “floor-malted” base malt (as in the recipes for Traffic Jam on the Autobahn, The Bitter Earl English Pale Ale, Helles I Know, Blackberry Farm’s Classic Saison, and “Make Your Best Pre-Prohibition Lager”.
Although I’m certain a decent and drinkable beer has been made from sweeping up the detritus from your local homebrew supply store’s grain-room floor, this is not what we’re talking about. Floor malting is a process of sprouting and drying the barley seed by spreading and shoveling it over a finely grated floor during the course of a few days. (For more details on the floor-malting process, see “Floor Malting” in The Oxford Companion to Beer.) It’s a bit more labor-intensive than modern pneumatic drum malting and therefore a smidge more expensive to produce and purchase, but there are enough die-hard fans who prize floor-malted base malts for their deep, rich flavors to warrant a closer look at what makes it different.