Malted Barley Ireland Supplier

[BrewBilly]

Hi Folks

Hope you are all well.

I made an interesting contact a couple of weeks ago who has put me in touch with a Malter in Irelnad who supplies internationally and who has a soft spot for home brewers.

Now the advice I would like to ask from the club as a whole is, how do I ask this malter about the propect of supplying a club like ours, or if we would even be interested. I thought I would ask the question of you guys before contacting the malter.

Any thoughts?

Cheers BrewBilly

[Rossa]

Sound interesting. I suppose the questions to ask are how is it supplied (bags ortrucks), what they can supply and what are the costs.

[Jacob]

Also it would be nice to know if that's a malter from cork or a different one?

Sent from my engineering tricorder.

[BrewBilly]

From what I have seen they do bags, and yes its the Cork malter.

Just asking initial questions.

[johnrm]

it Must be a Cork based supplIer 

[BrewBilly]

Andy, is this Malting Company of Ireland in Cork?

Unfortunately there are only two maltings left in Ireland, one in Athy in Co Kildare, the other in Cork. The Athy one is not interested in small business, but the Cork one is.

Sent from my ZX Spectrum 48k using Sinclair BASIC

Tube,

Yes it is the Malting Company of Ireland.

From some research that I have done is that they even have some connection with home brewing in the states through Northern Brewer, The guy that put me on to them works with various brewers and distillers around the country etc and said it would be worth while contacting the MCI. I was chatting to this guy about the ridiculous shipping costs to get anything shipped to Northern Ireland.

Has any contact been made in the past with MCI? Would it be of benefit to us to consider sourcing Malted Barley closer to home?

Any thoughts?

[johnrm]

Just off the phone from Chris OFlynn of MCI.
They will be breaking ground on their new bagging plant in June, and hope to have this completed by the end of July.
A forklift is included as part of this 200k investment.
Bagging will be 25kg. Smaller quantities are not expected to be available, although it has been considered.
The driving force behind the bagging plant is that it allows them to palletise and ship themselves.
The current business model means that the client has to collect.
Typically grain arrives in 28tonne bulk containers and leaves in 26tonne (but much happier!)

The Malt is typically at 4% moisture and will keep for a year, ambient temps are fione for storage with moisture being its main enemy.
That being said, moisture will only soften the husk and so only really impacts in lager commercial breweries.
Malts available are...
Pale Ale
Stout
Lager
Distilling

I have asked for the data sheets on these and will post once I have them.

Bagging is currently a manual process which as requires some additional man-power, so bagging is to-order only.
Small quantities are bagged by sight bags are about EUR10 (roughly 10k-12kg)
Larger quantities are sold by weighbridge at EUR800/tonne

I was in Fermanagh at the weekend, stopped into an offie to pick up some local fare and got chatting beer and brewing with the salesperson.
I was asked more-or-less the same question as you have posed above.

I reckon there is definitely scope for a NI group buy.
What better excuse for a trip down South than a big Malt pickup, stay-over and meet with other brewers in the Franciscan Well!

[johnrm]

If you NI lads need someone down here to coordinate anything at MCI I would help as best I can.

[Ciderhead]

I got prices from Chris and was talking to him last month, I did advise him that his collected are the same as Bairds delivered, however MCI's product is superior to anything from Bairds and in my head its.
1)Weyermans
2)MCI
3)Bairds
He sends a sh1t load (Commercially sensitive number) of product to the US specifically for the homebrew market, not to mention the volume TAF uses .
Cant wait until he has his bagging line up and running and we should be supporting him going forward.

[johnrm]

I've emailed Chris details of the forum etc. so he can snoop and see allt he good things we say about them!

[Rossa]

This is great news all round.

[johnrm]

No harm to provide Chris with a gentle reminder along with the prospect of more business!

[Irish Party Ale]

I drive from Dublin up to Belfast at least once a month, so if you need a couple of bags brought up, let me know and we'll sort something out - will save you a packet in postage!

[sub82]

Great work everyone! This sounds promising!

[johnrm]

MCI Spec sheets attached