What's the deal with UK malt?

[Ki-ri-n]

So I feel a little dumb but what's with the naming rights with UK malt?

I used to go to my lhbs store and always got Simpson's Golden Promise and Maris Otter. Because of this, I always assumed Simpson's "owned" those names because that's what I always got from the start.

Since that lhbs went on line only, I changed to a different lbhs (2 hrs away but it still saves when buying full bags) but now they source Thomas Faucet. And it's still called Golden Promise, Maris Otter, etc.

Googling, it looks like they're considered heritage malts and Simpson's is the current holder (?) for Golden Promise. Is this not like hops with holding the patent of the variety for "X" amount of years? Can any maltster in the UK use these names because they are old enough to do so? Is there a noticeable difference or concern using one source or the other?

 

[IslandLizard]

AFAIK, Golden Promise and Maris Otter are barley varieties.
Simpson and Thomas Fawcett are maltsters (malting companies).

[Added]

Golden Promise: The complete story of this heritage malt​

https://www.simpsonsmalt.co.uk/blog/golden-promise-the-complete-story-of-this-heritage-malt/

 

[day_trippr]

Perhaps there's a difference between being the registered maintainer of a heritage malt (Simpsons) vs the patent holder of a hop varietal...

Cheers!

 

[Northern_Brewer]

First off - Maris Otter and Golden Promise ARE NOTHING TO DO WITH MALT. They're the names of barley varieties, so they are equivalent to Citra and Mosaic, not hop products like T90 or Incognito.

The rules are a bit complicated but for your purposes - Simpsons hold the rights to Golden Promise as a plant, and a company called Robin Appel have the rights to Maris Otter. So they supply seed, and farmers have a contract which means they sell the finished barley back to the rights holder in the same way that Citra growers sell it to Haas.

The rights holder acts as a middleman, so they buy all the barley, and then sell it to the maltsters - this process is a bit clearer with Otter, although Robin Appel is under the same ownership as Warminster, whereas much less Golden Promise is produced and it almost all goes through Simpson's own maltings. There's also the geographical thing of GP being grown up north so it's only really "local" to the northern maltsters - Simpson's and Fawcett, whereas Otter is grown across a wide spread of southern England.

So maltsters use those names because they are buying the same varieties of barley from the rights holders, in the same way that Citra beers all use the same kind of hops.

Yes there are differences between maltsters, although they are mostly only apparent if you taste them side by side. People get romantic about floor malting (the old-fashioned way, not done by the big industrial maltsters in East Anglia which are geared to macro beer production) but it does taste better - Warminster not only has floor malting but also has that close relationship with Appel which means it should get the pick of the Otter crop. It does cost more though.

 

[Steveruch]

people get romantic about floor malting (the old-fashioned way, not done by the big industrial maltsters in East Anglia which are geared to macro beer production) but it does taste better -

It does. Last year I got a bag of Crisp #19 floor malted maris otter. The first beer I brewed with it was a bitter that came out great and it had an 8 point higher original gravity than the previous version of the recipe using non floor malted m o.