liquid assets
BEER’S BACKBONE
Local malting company plays with flavor and kick.
WRITTEN BY MARC TIAR
PHOTOS BY RYAN THOMAS
Malt. It’s the backbone of beer and whiskey, among other things. The word is familiar, yet most readers probably don’t know what malt is, much less that it’s being made right here in the Truckee Meadows.
Meet Lance Jergensen, owner/operator of Rebel Malting Company. He has been practicing this ancient art in the garage of his southeast Reno home since 2004.
| Lance Jergensen of Rebel Malting Company |
Jergensen’s venture into the world of malt was born of necessity. After spending a period in Reno working for New Belgium Brewing and working for the family brewery in Los Angeles, he found himself wanting organic malt. Since he could get organic barley, he decided to try malting it himself. Jergensen went to Denmark to learn the craft, and never stopped. After closing the Los Angeles brewery, he returned to Reno and has been malting here since.
But what is malt? Simply, malt is grain –– usually barley, but wheat, rye, and other grains commonly are malted –– that’s been moistened, allowed to germinate, then quickly dried to halt germination. This process creates enzymes that will convert starches in the kernel of the grain (present to fuel plant growth) into sugars, which, in turn, will be converted by yeast into alcohol.
For the volume of beer consumed in this country, thousands of tons of malt are required. The majority comes from industrialized plants, turning out truckloads of malt each day to feed the enormous breweries’ needs. But, just as there are small, artisan producers of everything from bread to coffee (versus the mass-produced factory products found in supermarkets everywhere), there are micro-maltsters such as Jergensen, turning out small, specialty batches of this niche commodity.
Rebel Malting mostly produces the basic, light-colored malt that forms the foundation of most beer. Soon, he would like to begin roasting, creating the spectrum of caramel, brown, and black malts required to make the variety of beer styles enjoying a renaissance today. He also works in some one-of-a-kind malts, typically for special, small-batch brews. Recent projects have included emmer, an obscure grain used in ancient Egypt, for a Great Basin Brewery Co./Nevada Museum of Art beer, and millet, a gluten-free grain. Besides supplying moderate batches such as these, he also barters with local home brewers for their finished product.
On a recent day, Jergensen was working on his malting equipment. It’s a new setup after recently installing his equipment at an Oregon brewery. He casually described the process –– from delivery of one-ton super sacks of barley from Fallon and Yerington farmers, several stages of rinsing and steeping the grain (used water goes to his garden), and finally shoveling it into the large metal box to be heated into the final product. Someday, he would like to see the whole grain-to-glass process occur within a 100-mile food shed.
Jergensen is a salt-of-the-earth, small-batch creator of a specialized product. Rebel Malting is, as he puts it, little more than a “glorified hobby.” He still has a day job and, admittedly, couldn’t supply enough malt for even one local brewpub’s needs. But he is passionate about his craft, barely containing his enjoyment strolling the barley fields, surrounded by the crops that will end up in his garage, and eventually in his own home-brewed beer.
If you want to find out more about Rebel Malting, visit Rebelmalting.com.
Reno resident Marc Tiar, at times, is a reference librarian and a family man. He always is a fanatic about beer and brewing.
