Why Brewers Choose BESTMALZ

Over the course of the last eighteen months, we sat down with three brewers who all rate BESTMALZ malt for bringing something extra to their core range and special beers. Those brewers were James Heffron from Verdant Brewing Co, Tristan Hembrow of Bristol Beer Factory, and Track’s Matt Dutton. They use a malt agreement to secure their supply of top quality German malt and guarantee stable pricing – a crucial step in your brewery’s predicted fixed costs over the year, and a sure-fire way to keep your finance team happy too. Explore our case studies below to see why these brewers and breweries choose BEST Heidelberg and BEST Pilsen Malt from us at Loughran Brewers Select, and how a malt agreement could strengthen your own production planning.

James Heffron on BESTMALZ BEST Heidelberg in Verdant’s Helles

Malt: BESTMALZ BEST Heidelberg

Colour: Max 2.9 EBC

Diastatic Power: 250 WK

Brewery: Verdant Brewing Co.

Beer: Verdant ‘Helles 4.8% Lager (Core Range)

Brewer: James Heffron (Co-founder)

In July 2025 we visited Verdant in Penryn to brew the Little Summer Beer Bash festival collab beer, a three way collab between Verdant, DEYA and Left Handed Giant using Crosby Hops™ Amarillo® (VGXP01 cv) CGX®, El Dorado® T90 & CGX®, and the Lallemand LalBrew® Verdant IPA™ Ale Yeast developed by Verdant. Out in the taproom courtyard, over pizza (of course) and several pints (of course) of Verdant ‘Helles’, we got talking to co-founder James Heffron about BESTMALZ BEST Heidelberg, which Verdant have been using for the last 3 years, and forms the backbone of ‘Helles’.

So, James why are you choosing BEST Heidelberg for your core lager that you’re producing?

For us at Verdant, it’s because of the low colour and the consistency of product

Why are you using a more expensive imported product compared to say a UK lager malt – what are the differences?

At Verdant, we’ve always felt like if you’re going to try and make lager, you need to make it properly. For us, that means trying to mimic [German] water profiles, using the right yeast strains, and using grain that’s been grown and malted in Germany, and using German hops So that’s what we do in the Helles.

We wanted our Verdant lager to be light in colour, and BESTMALZ BEST Heidelberg is a very light malt – it’s 2.5 to 2.9 EBC.

The other great thing about BEST Heidelberg for us is that it’s flexible – you can ‘fiddle around with it’.  We do a mash out decoction on the Helles so give it a little bit of extra colour, and also a bit more doughy-ness to add to the flavour.

Bristol Beer Factory Choosing BESTMALZ for Two Core Lagers

Malt: BESTMALZ BEST Pilsen Malt

Colour: 3.0 – 4.9 EBC

Diastatic Power: 250 WK

Brewery: Bristol Beer Factory

Beers: Bristol Beer Factory ‘Infinity’ 4.6%  Helles Lager & ‘Gravity’ 4.1% Pils

Brewer: Tristan Hembrow (Head Brewer)

When Bristol Beer Factory were commissioning their new brewery and taproom in February 2025, they needed a top-quality malt to bring in via bulk load to form the basis of two of their core range beers. Through a malt agreement, we arranged for that malt to BESTMALZ BEST Pilsen malt. Our sales manager Jethro headed to Bristol to welcome in the first bulk load delivery, and chat to head brewer Tristan about why Bristol Beer Factory chose BESTMALZ.

So, Tristan, it’s been a big move really bringing in malt from Germany in the form of BESTMALZ BEST Pilsen right?

Absolutely, yeah. We needed to fill up our 31 tonne silos so we looked at the options that we had -there’s only a couple of big players out there that could fulfil that for us, and we chose the BESTMALZ [pun!] and it is smelling and looking tremendous!

There’s so many breweries making lagers and to try and differentiate by using German malt is a really big deal. There’s a lot out there using UK lager malt, using barley varieties like Laureate or Planet. From these UK barley varieties you might generally be getting some more toast-like or biscuit malts sort of notes and aromas, so to make the move – kind of a brave move really – to bring in by bulk in that volume of your German Amidala or Leandra malt, which is going to have kind of bread and subtle sweetness I think it’s really commendable. What were your thought processes around that?

So for us for lager here at Bristol Beer Factory we love the German & Czech lager. We love the authenticity of those lagers. In our ‘Inifinity’ Helles we wanted to go as close to a Tegernseer as we possibly could. To do that, you have to use the right ingredients, and those right ingredients stem from the grain – and that means a German pilsner malt.

At the new site we wanted something to pair up with our 4.6% ‘Inifinity’ Helles, so we’re also focusing on a 4.1% Pils [‘Gravity’] alongside.

I actually bought a book – ‘The Naked Beer: The Book About Pilsner’ by Christian Andersen & Jens Eiken – it’s an incredible book and I really rate it. In there it’s got a lot of American brewers talking about their beers, and those American brewers also love to keep those authentic lager strains going in those beer styles. Over in the US they actually heavily invest in getting German malt brought over, and in the book they all raved about BESTMALZ.

We were talking earlier about Buoy Brewing over in Oregon because they want that high diastatic power from their malt to get really beautiful attenuation compared to what they’d be able to get from American malts and similar.

Also in the BESTMALZ BEST Pilsen the flavour profile is there, and it’s going to give us those bready tones that we really want. Using BEST Pilsen Malt is going to separate us from other brewers doing their lager styles with their British twist on their lagers. We want to really push that German background, with notes of a slight bit of honey, and a bit of dryness, but also the sweetness along with the finish as well.

Track & BESTMALZ BEST Heidelberg in Hazy Pales, IPAs & Pilsners

Malt: BESTMALZ BEST Heidelberg

Colour: Max 2.9 EBC

Diastatic Power: 250 WK</h6>

Brewery: Track Brewing Co.

Beer: Track ‘Arosa’ Helles 5.2% Lager & ‘Half Dome’ 5.3% APA (Core Range) plus West Coast IPAs, Hazy Pales, & NEIPAs

Brewer: Matt Dutton (Head Brewer)

Just before last year’s Rivington Farm Trip, we tagged along for a brew day when Track were brewing a DDH IPA with Celestial Beerworks. After lead brewer Kit Every had finished mashing in the BESTMALZ BEST Heidelberg & the transfer, we pulled up a pew with head brewer Matt Dutton to learn more about why these folks use BESTMALZ in so many of their awesome beers.

So for Track we’ve got BESTMALZ BEST Heidelberg Pils – it’s a really low colour pilsner malt with a good protein content. It’s around two & a half years now [in 2024] that we’ve switched most of our hazies & IPAs in general over to pilsner malt, & BESTMALZ was the first malt we went to for that – and our West Coast beers & lagers are also with the same –  BESTMALZ BEST Heidelberg. For those West Coasts & lagers we want them to be really low colour as well – clean and crisp and obviously pin bright.

For our hazy beers, our goal with those is to have them as yellow & pale as possible. We want them to be really opaque and thick. Then with a good creamy head it’s going to give some nice mouthfeel & everything else. The colour on BESTMALZ Heidelberg is really, really low which is perfect for that, & it’s high protein content too so that helps us boost that body up – along with generally with a bit of Oat & a bit of Chit maybe on the side.

We do a lot of collaborations and listen and talk to other brewers – and try and learn from their experiences as well. We’ve spoken to a lot of American brewers who say that BEST Heidelberg is the lowest colour pilsner malt on the market. That’s perfect for us – we found the cleaner the base of the beer that we can make, the more the hops will present and stand out and sort of really be amplified. Apply those processes to a double IPA & the hops can really shine through.

BESTMALZ German Premium Malt – Chosen by Leading UK & Irish Breweries

Verdant, Bristol Beer Factory and Track are just a few of the growing number of breweries across the UK and Ireland turning to BESTMALZ for consistent, high-performing German malt. Names like Two Flints, Baron, Dark Element, Left Handed Giant, Beak, Cloudwater, Geipel, Donzoko, Whiplash, Tempest and Glasshouse all trust BESTMALZ in their beer – in many cases relying on BEST Heidelberg and BEST Pilsner as the backbone of their core beers. This is a clear indication of the calibre of brewers choosing BESTMALZ. Many of these breweries will secure their malt supply with a malt agreement, guaranteeing availability and locking in pricing. If you think your brewery could benefit from the same stability and quality, get in touch – we’ll connect you with your sales manager and help you set up a malt agreement that works for you.