Every year brewers drive themselves crazy trying to figure out what the next trend in craft beer is going to be. A new hazy IPA style? The long-prophesied Year of the Lager? Perhaps Mild Madness will spread across the nation? But one trend has been blindingly obvious for the past few years, and it’s not a style trend, but an ingredient one: Ultra-pale colored base malt.
Even five years ago, the standards for base malt were as straightforward as Coke vs. Pepsi: Is it pilsner or two-row? Now ultra-pale malts such as Prairie Select are growing in sales, as craft breweries seek maximum color reduction while still retaining flavor. So, what happened? And how did an ultra-pale malt developed for large commercial breweries become a craft darling?
The current push toward ultra-pale base malts feels like the newest trend in craft brewing. But in reality, it may be one of the oldest. For nearly two centuries, brewers have been steadily pushing toward lighter and lighter beers, using whatever technology was available to do so. Today’s ultra-pale pilsner malts aren’t breaking new ground; they’re evolving a tradition that is nearly 200 years old.
Eras of IPA
Like everything else in American craft, the trend for ultra-pale malt is driven by IPA, and the throughline of IPA color is pretty clear as it has evolved. It might be hard to pick just one or two beers to define an IPA “era,” but the color trend by decade is obvious.
1980s—Amber
1990s—Light Amber
2000s—Gold
2010s—Pale Gold
2020s—Straw
Sierra Nevada Celebration in 1981. Bear Republic Racer 5 in 1997. Ballast Point Sculpin in 2005. Founders All Day IPA in 2010. Ghost Town Nose Goblin in 2015. Every step of the way IPA got lighter in color and used less caramel malt. The 1990s saw crystal character fade, the 2000s West Coast movement pushed it even lighter, and by the 2010s many flagship IPAs contained little to no caramel malt at all. Hazy IPA today counts on oats and wheat to provide the sweetness that crystal malt once did, producing IPA as light in color as light lager used to be. The story of American IPA, ironically, sounds a lot like the story of lager.
Stop me if this sounds familiar: A beer style emerges that is dark and bitter, then technology and skills improve, brewers make the beer lighter, and consumers embrace the change. It’s exactly what happened to IPA this century, and it’s exactly what happened to lager in the last one. Both lager and modern American IPA have their genesis in older styles that were firmly amber or darker. As technology and knowledge spread, each became brighter and lighter. In their final forms, each is now as close to straw as possible and commonly uses adjuncts to get that ultra-pale color. If the story sounds familiar, that’s because it is. And the reasons for it are the same in both instances.
The Hunt for Light in Lager
Lighter malt wasn’t pursued merely for appearance; it was also more efficient. Better brewhouse performance, better hop expression, and prettier appearance all pointed brewers toward the same conclusion. Once lighter-colored malt became possible, its adoption was inevitable.
With beer’s long and varied history, it can be hard to find a starting point for certain trends. But for light-colored malt being used in lager, we have a very clear date: 1841. That’s when two best friends, Gabriel Sedlmayr from Spaten and Anton Dreher from Dreher, debuted what we now know as Munich and Vienna malts. Their motivations were the same in both cases: better brewhouse efficiency, more apparent hop flavor, and greater visual appeal. If these motivations sound familiar, they should; they’re the same reasons modern brewers seek ultra-pale malt today.
Spaten debuted its brand-new and lighter-colored malt at Oktoberfest 1841, while Dreher’s release happened in his home town of Vienna. The two pals had traveled to the United Kingdom and learned how to produce base malt that was lighter in color (and thus higher in enzymes, increasing efficiency) than anything anyone had yet seen. They succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. Once consumers could actually see their beer, thanks to advances in glass manufacturing, lighter color became a selling point all on its own.
But Sedlmayr and Dreher had no idea that an even-lighter colored beer was soon to appear from the east: Pilsner. Josef Groll (described by his own father as “the rudest man in Bavaria”) took knowledge gained from the Bavarian beer scene and applied it in Pilsen in Bohemia, developing the world’s first truly golden beer. This new “pilsner” became a sensation for a lot of the same reasons that American IPA is sensational today: It was light in color and had explosive hop character. So, this “newfangled” trend toward lighter-colored beer with loads of hops is actually not so new.
Let’s not forget who really drove this trend to ultra-pale beer: Anheuser-Busch and MillerCoors. Anheuser-Busch began using rice (at great expense!) all the way back in 1876 to get ultra-pale colored beer. Both Miller and Coors began using corn to lower the color while also adding some fermentables. Their successful mass-marketing of ultra-pale colored beer shifted a standard that had existed for millennia, making pale-colored beer the new definition of what beer looks like.
Everything Old Is New Again
The same forces that drove Vienna lager, Munich lager, Pilsner, and eventually American light lager, are now influencing American craft beer. Brewers want three things:
- Greater control over color
- Malt that complements instead of competes with hops
- The flexibility of a base malt that can be used in a range of styles
That’s exactly what Prairie Select was designed for.
Prairie Select gives brewers what they value: extremely low color, a clean malt profile that stays out of the way of hops, and relentless, almost-boring consistency. Select is a super-pale pilsner that Prairie Malt has offered for broader commercial sale for some time, but it didn’t start that way. Prairie Select exists because large commercial breweries demanded an ultra-pale malt that delivered exceptionally low color without sacrificing malt quality or brewhouse performance.
Select begins life at barley selection: Certain Canadian barley varieties are better suited for production as Select than others. The finished malt is called Select because very specific low-protein varieties are “selected” to make it. Protein is the most important part of the selection process because lower protein varieties provide a better starting point for producing pale malt with consistency.
The malting process is also different for Prairie Select. Pilsner and two-row have generally set drying times as they convert from barley into malt. Select is a bit more variable because the drying of the malt happens at a lower temperature, thus taking more time. The result is malt with a lighter color but a maltier flavor. In theory, it’s not very different from smoking a pork butt for barbecue: “Slow and low” is the guideline, and “it’s done when it’s done” is the rule.
How Low Can You Go?
So, if it’s possible to make malt at 1.5°L, why not go lower? What about 1.0°L? How low can you go?
A maltster doesn’t go lower than 1.0°L because, at a certain point, the malt would just taste like grass. Some specific malt color and Maillard development are necessary just to ensure the malt tastes like malt. And ultra-pale malts that get their color from a too-short drying period are among the worst offenders. The basic reason malt needs a minimum of color is that without it, the finished beer would taste horrible.
Other practical considerations drive malt being a certain minimum color—specifically, enzyme content. The malting process naturally destroys some of the enzyme content present in the barley, which might seem bad but is actually good. Too many enzymes making it from the malt into the mash would lead to beer so dry as to be undrinkable.
Another factor that prohibits ultra-low colored malt production is LOX. The malting process is important for destroying LOX enzymes as well as DMS precursors such as S-methyl methionine. There are ways to compensate (somewhat) for the higher amount of DMS precursors, but the likelihood of the beer tasting stale faster is much higher. At the end of the day, a certain amount of color is necessary for making sure that the finished beer still tastes like beer within a month of packaging. The low and slow malting process that Prairie Select undergoes destroys a lot of DMS precursors, but ultra-pale malts created in a hurry may cause problems down the line.
Always Look on the Bright Side of Life
The use of ultra-pale malts in craft beer seems to be accelerating, and it’s a trend as old as the Golden Age of Lager. But it’s important for brewers to not pick any ol’ pale malt, or they’ll end up with beer that tastes like a freshly mowed lawn. Malt selection is highly important, as is looking at a malt COA to determine whether enzyme content and protein levels are being kept in check. Ultra-pale colored malt has a lot of brewhouse benefits and can be used in virtually any beer style.
But malt selection is key. Too much light makes the baby go blind. Don’t pick just any available pale malt. Prairie Select is a terrific and tested option for ultra-pale pilsners and hazies. For more than 200 years brewers have chased lighter color for their malt whenever technology allowed it. Today’s pursuit of ultra-pale beer is no departure from brewing history, but a continuation of it. Prairie Select gives modern brewers a way to continue that tradition without sacrificing quality, flavor, or performance. Join the new “old” trend.