Quality Advantages and Processing Characteristics of Canadian Malting Barley Variety Portfolio

Summary

Canada currently markets a portfolio of malting barley varieties to the domestic malting barley users and users in Asia, Latin America and South Africa, which traditionally had imported Harrington barley or malt. To promote these new varieties, the Canadian Malting Barley Technical Centre (CMBTC) has been involved directly over the past two years in carrying out plant-scale malting and brewing trials with the varieties such as AC Metcalfe, CDC Kendall, CDC Stratus and CDC Copeland. Results from these trials carried out at CMBTC and conducted overseas demonstrated that these varieties can be processed successfully under the local processing conditions and produce quality malt meeting the requirements of the local malting and brewing practices. While all these four varieties produced malt with quality comparable to Harrington malt, to various degrees they also possess some unique characteristics in terms of barley quality (better plumpness & husk retention), processing requirements and malt specs (lower color, lower soluble protein, lower beta-glucan content and adequate enzyme levels), as well as trouble free brewing performance. The varieties involved in the trials have been readily accepted by the overseas users, and some of the users have incorporated one or two of these four varieties in their regular production as a replacement for Harrington barley.

Plant tests of these and other varieties have also been conducted at CMBTC in Winnipeg for domestic and export market clients.

It is well recognized by the overseas barley users that Canadian barley has some quality advantages in terms of the processing condition requirements, malt quality and brewhouse performance in comparison with barley varieties from Australian and European origins. In process, Canadian barley varieties can produce malt with consistent quality under variable and less than ideal processing conditions. Compared to other varieties from other origins, Canadian varieties require shorter germination time, and need no additives such as GA during processing. The adequate enzyme package of Canadian barley malt ensures a trouble free brewing process. Canadian barley does not need the addition of non-barley based industrial enzymes in mashing, and is well-suited for brewing with a low to a high adjunct ratio, as well as for the production of a variety of beer types.

Introduction

As one of the major malting barley producers and exporters in the world, Canada produces some of the best malting barley in the world. Since Harrington barley was developed and registered in 1981, it has earned an excellent reputation for the Canadian malting barley industry because of its world-renowned malting and brewing characteristics. In the past, to some overseas barley users, Harrington was a synonym of quality Canadian malting barley in the export market. For many years, the Canadian malting barley industry has been enjoying the domestic and export markets created by Harrington barley. However, in Canada during the last few years Harrington’s production has been declining because of its deteriorating agronomic performance and disease resistance after over 20 years successful production, and because of the availability of new malting barley varieties with the malting and brewing quality attributes equal to or better than Harrington’s. This has created a need for both Canadian malting barley producers and barley users to switch to the new generation of barley varieties that offer better agronomic performance.

Canadian malting barley breeders have successfully developed a group of new 2-R and 6-R malting barley varieties with better agronomic performance and improved malting and brewing quality attributes. Canadian malting barley breeders continue to develop new varieties to meet the increasing demand for better malting barley varieties by the barley growers and users.

The Canadian malting barley industry currently offers a portfolio of 2-R and 6-R malting barley varieties to domestic and international customers. However, it is not an easy task for marketers to convince the maltsters and brewers to switch to these newly developed barley varieties, because of a lack of familiarity by the customers. In order to promote these newer barley varieties, during the last three years, CMBTC has been conducting malting and brewing trials in Winnipeg and overseas. Most of the overseas trials were done in conjunction with and funded by the Market Development of the CWB. In this paper, the quality advantages and processing characters of the major Canadian malting barley varieties are discussed based on the data generated by CMBTC and collected from the industry.

Canada’s Portfolio of Malting Barley Varieties

Canada is a major malting barley exporter because it grows some of the best malting barley in the world. Since Harrington barley was registered in 1981, Harrington quickly became the dominant 2-R barley variety for domestic use and for export. Because of its superior malting and brewing characteristics Harrington has been a very popular variety worldwide. Because its production and sales were so successful, after its release till the late 1990’s, newer 2-R malting varieties released in Canada could not challenge Harrington’s dominance. Over the last 20 years Harrington was the king of Canadian malting barley. Although in the 10 years subsequent to Harrington’s registration, an array of 2-R varieties were developed and released such as Ellice, Manley, Stein, B1215, AC Oxbow, none of them were able to challenge Harrington because they either were neglected by the growers and barley users or they failed to demonstrate that their overall quality (malting and agronomy) were superior to Harrington. Some of them had malting and agronomic qualities equal to or better than Harrington but there was not a concerted industrial effort to make changes.

However, since the mid-1990’s the situation has changed. A new generation of malting varieties have been registered. These newer varieties such as CDC Stratus, CDC Kendall, AC Metcalfe, Merit and CDC Copeland offer much higher yield than Harrington and possess malting and brewing attributes equal to or better than Harrington. While Harrington’s production is declining, the production of these newer varieties is increasing. This shift in production to newer varieties enables Canada to offer a portfolio of malting barley varieties to the domestic and international barley users rather than one or two varieties.

In contrast to 2-R barley, the changes in 6-R barley variety development were not as great. However, there were two changes worth mentioning, first, all the current varieties in commercial production are white-Aleurone layer varieties, and secondly, more and more new varieties bred from the Canadian breeding programs have parentage from the current, dominant varieties such as Robust, Excel and B 1602 which were all originally introduced from USA.

Table 1 lists all the current major barley varieties registered in Canada since 1981. Please note that some varieties such as B1215, Merit, B1602, Excel, Robust and Lacey were introduced from USA and registered in Canada after passing the local quality tests.

Table 1. Major Canadian malting barley varieties and the year of the registration (interim registration).

Two-Row	Six-Row
Harrington (1981) Manley (1991) Stein (1992) B1215 (1993) AC Oxbow (1994) CDC Stratus (1994) CDC Kendall (1995) AC Metcalfe (1997) Merit (1999) CDC Copeland (1999) AC Bountiful (1999) Calder (2002) CDC Select (2002) Newdale (2002)	Tankard (1992) B1602 (1991) Excel (1998) Robust (1998) CDC Sisler (1999) CDC Yorkton (2000) CDC Battleford (2001) CDC Tisdale (2002) Lacey (2002)

Quality advantages of these newer varieties
The newly developed malting barley varieties possess improvements in several quality aspects required by the maltster for malt production or by the brewer for beer production. Taking new 2-R varieties for example, in comparison with Harrington they showed improvements in both malting and agronomic aspects (Table 2).

Table 2. Quality improvements in newly developed Canadian barley varieties.

Malting	Agronomy
Higher 1000-kernel weight Higher extract levels Improved husk retention Lower soluble protein Lower beta-glucan	Higher production yield Better pest resistance

The improved agronomic performance would encourage farmers to grow the newer varieties, and the quality improvement in malting would encourage maltsters and brewers to use these newer barley varieties.

The 'Recommended Malting Barley Varieties' List
In order to provide barley producers with the information on market demand for particular established varieties, and to show them the current market testing status of the newly released varieties, the CWB in conjunction with the malting barley industry published the Recommended Malting Barley Varieties List for every crop year since 1998. The most recent list for the 2003-2004 crop year was published by CMBTC. The varieties are recommended by judging the expected export and domestic uses relative to the expected commercial production. The recommended varieties for 2003-2004 crop year are shown in Table 3. Producers should view the list as an important reference before they make a seeding decision.

Table 3. Barley varieties listed on the 'Recommended Malting Barley Varieties' list for 2003-2004 crop year published by CMBTC.

Recommended Two-Row Barley Varieties
Variety	Comments
AC Metcalfe	Widely accepted domestically and for export
Harrington	Established demand, but other varieties have superior agronomic characteristics
CDC Kendall* (AU & SWP)	Expanding domestic and export markets
Stein* (AU)	Established export markets
CDC Stratus	Established domestic markets
Merit	Limited domestic markets; expanding export markets
The varieties AC Bountiful (TR 243), CDC Copeland (TR 150), Calder (TR 262), CDC Select (TR 153), and Newdale (TR 258) are not being grown for the commercial market. Limited quantities are being grown for market development and testing purposes. B1202 has limited domestic markets.

Recommended Six-Row Barley Varieties
Variety	Comments
Robust	Established demand
Excel	Established demand
B1602 (1)	Established demand
CDC Sisler* (AU)	Growing domestic demand
Legacy	Growing domestic and export demand
The varieties CDC Yorkton (BT 459), CDC Battleford (BT 456), CDC Tisdale (BT 462), and Lacey are not being grown for the commercial market. Limited quantities are being grown for market development and testing purposes.

It is evident in barley users’ comments that all the recommended varieties are experiencing positive market and customer acceptance in domestic and international markets. Each variety has its own advantage and disadvantages depending on customers’ preference and needs:

• AC Metcalfe has been widely used by domestic malting companies and the malting companies in China, South Africa, USA and Colombia. Its malt has been used by breweries in Canada, Japan and USA, as well as breweries in South America and elsewhere.
• Harrington is still widely accepted by domestic and international users and is still the principle ingredient in many beers in Asia and North America. However, its traditional users have noticed the quality of selectable Harrington barley is declining over the last few years.
• CDC Kendall is used primarily by Canadian malting companies for use by domestic breweries, and has also been exported to Japan.
• Stein is used by domestic malting and brewing companies in limited quantity, but it is widely accepted and used in China.
• CDC Stratus is used by domestic malting companies, and the malt it produces is welcomed by several breweries in Canada and South Africa. Limited sales of Stratus barley were made to China.
• Merit is mainly exported to USA as barley or malt, and there is the potential to export as several markets have shown interest in Merit.

Variety	2002	2001	Variety	2002	2001
AC Metcalfe	37.8	26.9	Robust	38.9	37.4
Harrington	25.9	36.0	Excel	29.1	42.0
CDC Stratus	8.8	8.0	B1602	11.6	10.2
Stein	6.2	6.8	CDC Sisler	4.5	3.4
Merit	5.4	3.6	CDC Battleford	0.6	0.4
B1202	0.8	2.1	CDC Yorkton	0.3	0.0
CDC Copeland	0.5	0.2	Others	3.4	6.6
Manley	0.2	2.6
AC Bountiful	0.2	0.2
Other	2.9	2.8

Table 5. Quality requirements and quality of Canadian malting barley.

Essential requirements

Offered by Canadian barley

Viable and without deep dormancy Good enzyme package Relatively low protein content High extract levels Low beta-glucan content Modifies rapidly & well Good hull retention

High varietal purity Low dormancy (Genetic/Low micro-flora) Good germination and vigor High extract yield & high levels of enzymes Produce consistent quality malt under different malting conditions Easy to process and requires less restrictive processing conditions Ideal for high levels of adjunct brew Highly fermentable wort allows precise adjustment of mashing & fermentation conditions Suitable for different beer types

Malting characteristics of major 2-R malting barley varieties
The major quality attributes of 2-R barley varieties are summarized in Table 6. Harrington is included as a comparison. Although there are many similarities in terms of processing condition requirements and general malting characters between the listed varieties, there are differences in agronomic performance and malting behaviour among these varieties. It is noteworthy that although all the varieties listed in Table 5 shared some similarities in processing condition requirements (indicated by our malting trials in general), individually tailored cycles were required to fully utilize their quality potential and produce more desirable malt.

These differences provide a range of choices for the growers and barley users to select the varieties that are best suited for their needs. Marketers are therefore better able to market the varieties that best meet the customer’s needs. For example, some customers prefer the varieties offering lower soluble protein and lighter malt colour, others may prefer the varieties offering high enzymatic levels.

Table 6. Comparison of quality features of new 2-row barley varieties.

Typical malt quality of current major Canadian malting barley varieties
For 2-R malting barley varieties listed in Table 7, within the normal barley protein contents, all produce malt with quality comparable to that of malt produced from Harrington barley.

Table 7. Malt quality of the new 2-R Canadian barley varieties within a given barley protein range.

	AC Metcalfe	CDC Kendall	CDC Stratus	Merit	CDC Copeland	Stein	Harrington
Barley protein, %	10.0-11.0	11.5-12.5	11.0-12.0	10.0-11.0	10.9-12.0	10.0-11.0	10-11.0
F-Extract, %	81.5-82.5	80.5-81.5	80.0-81.0	82.0-83.0	80.0-81.0	82.0-83.0	82.0-83.0
F-C difference, %	0.8-1.2	1.0-1.5	1.0-1.5	0.8-1.1	0.4-0.6	0.8-1.3	0.8-1.3
Soluble, %	4.7-5.3	4.7-5.1	4.6-5.0	4.8-5.3	4.6-5.0	4.8-5.4	4.8-5.4
Kolbach Index, %	44-48	38-42	38-42	46-48	38-42	44-48	44-48
Alpha-amylase, D.U.	50-55	50-55	45-50	50-60	50-60	55-60	55-60
DP, L	100-120	120-140	110-130	115-135	110-135	110-140	115-135
Beta-glucan, ppm	70-100	70-100	120-150	70-90	50-90	110-140	110-140

Data sources: Breeders, GRL & CMBTC

However, differences of malt quality in extract level, soluble protein content, wort color and beta-glucan content were noticeable between the different varieties. It was observed during our trials that in contrast to Harrington, under the given processing conditions, Metcalfe tended to produce malt with higher extract, higher soluble protein and wort color. Stein tended to produce malt very comparable to Harrington malt but with a tendency of giving higher color. Kendall produced malt with quality more close to Harrington except higher wort color. Merit offered much higher extract, but with a tendency of giving higher soluble protein and wort color. Stratus’s malt offered lower soluble protein and lower color but required a longer germination time during process. Copeland was very easy to process and offered malt with lower soluble protein, lower color and very lower beta-glucan.

Overall, the malt analyses between the varieties exhibited an acceptable range for those quality parameters that are of interest to the maltster and the brewer. This similarity in malt analysis could be considered as an advantage since maltsters and brewers could replace Harrington malt with malt produced from the newer barley varieties without changing their processing procedures drastically. This was supported by data from our own malting and brewing trials.

In comparison with Australian and European malt, Canadian malting barley has better and more balanced malt quality, especially in terms of enzyme levels, FAN and beta-glucan content, while Canadian barley malt gives comparable extract, higher enzyme levels and lower beta-glucan content, as well as better wort clarity and filtration speed. In terms of processing conditions requirements, Canadian barley is easy to process because Canadian barley has very high varietal purity, low or no dormancy and good germination vigor, as well as very high enzyme levels. In a normal crop years it shows no water sensitivity. It is well recognized by the overseas barley users that Canadian barley has some quality advantages in terms of the processing condition requirements and brewhouse performance when comparison with barley varieties of Australian and European origins. Canadian barley varieties produce malt with consistent quality even under variable and less ideal conditions. Canadian varieties require shorter germination time, and need no additives such as GA during processing. The adequate enzyme package of Canadian barley malt ensures a trouble free brewing process. Canadian barley malt does not need the addition of industrial enzymes in mashing, and is well suited for the brewing of beers with low to high adjunct ratio, and the production of a variety of beer types.

Conclusions

Canada produces some of the best malting barley in the world. Canadian malting barley breeders have successfully developed a group of new malting barley varieties with better agronomic performance and improved malting and brewing quality attributes. During the last few years, the production of the newer varieties is increasing while the production of once dominant variety Harrington is declining. With the increasing production of newer malting barley varieties, the Canadian malting barley industry offers a portfolio of malting barley varieties to satisfy needs of the domestic and international customers. CMBTC is working with our partners to probe the attributes of these varieties for our customers. Generally these new 2-R barley varieties produce malt with quality at least comparable to Harrington malt while some of these new varieties produce malt with much lower soluble protein, lower color and lower beta-glucan content than Harrington malt.

In the international malting barley market, Canadian barley is preferred by maltsters and brewers because of its superior malting and brewing characters and the simpler processing condition requirements.

References

Canadian International Grains Institute (2001). Canadian Barley Malting and Brewing Guide 2nd Edition. CIGI, Winnipeg, Canada

Yueshu Li
Canadian Malting Barley Technical Centre
Winnipeg, Manitoba

Presented at the 3rd Canadian Barley Symposium, June 19-20, 2003