St Austell Brewery has been working with Cornish farmers for almost a quarter of a century to grow a portion of the barley which goes into making millions of pints of its beer.
This year’s Cornish barley yield saw around 2,000 tonnes of barley – the equivalent weight of six Boeing 747 jets or 13 adult blue whales – harvested from 19 farms which the brewery has partnered with across Cornwall.
The local harvest will be used to create around 24 million pints of St Austell Brewery’s flagship beers.
Each year the brewers head out to the fields– with some as close as three miles away from the brewery – to see how the crop has fared.
The brewery also invited partners along including B-Corp certified Simpsons Malt, the maltsters who make the malt from the barley, seed suppliers and the farmers.
The barley – Maris Otter (winter barley) and Laureate (spring barley), are used in national favourites such as Tribute, Proper Job, korev, Big Job, Anthem, Cornish Best and Hicks.
Laureate is processed and turned into Cornish Gold – a malt exclusively made for and used by St Austell Brewery.
Brewing Director Georgina Young said: “Sunshine, especially during ripening is critical for barley quality and yield. The weather this year has been some of the worst, wettest, most sunless and grey months and the winter barley harvest across the country has been indifferent at best with a massive range of both quality and yield.
“So, our hopes for the crop weren’t high – but all fears were allayed as we zigzagged through the golden swaying fields of winter barley, which has done extremely well despite the weather conditions, the quality has been excellent.”
St Austell Brewery sources as much Cornish barley as they can from the west country and any additional barley comes from East Anglia.
The Cornwall Maris Otter Partnership was first set up in 2002 and is still going strong. Its aim was to reintroduce the variety as a staple crop in the county and form long-lasting relationships with farmers, to ensure a ready supply for the brewery.
In total, almost 900 acres of Cornish farmland has been cultivated to grow Maris Otter barley exclusively for the brewery.
The partnership is one of St Austell Brewery’s key initiatives in supporting the local economy and cutting transport mileage.
