is a German malting company headquartered in Bruchsal near Karlsruhe in the state of Baden-Württemberg. Founded in 1824 as a small, family-run brewery and malt house, the company focused exclusively on malt making starting in 1885. Today, Durst operates out of three malting facilities with a combined capacity of over 200,000 metric tons per year. Globally, this makes Durst the world’s 17th-largest commercial (as opposed to brewery-run) malting company by annual production volume. Its three operations were all former independent maltings that Durst acquired between 1959 and 2000. The Nierstein/Rhine Malting Company moved into Durst ownership in 1959; the Rheinische Malzfabriken Union in Gernsheim/Rhine followed in 1985. In 1992, the three entities, Durst, Nierstein, and Rheinische Malzfabriken, became a single legal entity, which then took over a fourth company, Westdeutsche Mälzerei GmbH in Castrop-Rauxel, in 2000. Substantial investments in focused modernization led to the decision, in 2006, to close down the Nierstein site. Durst now specializes in the bulk production of Pils malt, Munich malt, Vienna malt, and wheat malt, which it exports around the world.