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Minch Malt has been producing the highest quality malt since 1847. It all began when Matthew Minch, a tenant farmer from Portersize, Ballitore, opened his first malting business in Athy, Co. Kildare, Ireland in around 1845. Although he didn’t come from a wealthy background, Minch proved that hard work, passion and dedication go a long way. Within 2 years he had acquired two further small malting premises in Athy. In 1921 Minch merged his malting business with that of P.R. Norton, a maltster with premises in the adjoining counties of Carlow, Laois and Kilkenny and the new company was called Minch Norton. These days, Minch Malt is registered in Ireland and is owned by parent company BOORTMALT, the malting business of French Co-operative AXEREAL.

Supply Chain & Sustainability

Today, Minch Malt combine centuries of tradition with the most up to date equipment and processes to produce malted barley that is highly sought after by Ireland’s leading brewers and distillers. Through decades of experience they have learned that to make excellent malt, you need excellent quality malting barley.  Minch Malt believe so much in this philosophy that they positively influence every link of the supply chain that produces this illustrious grain. From the moment that the finest barley seed varieties are selected, through to the delivery of the malting barley to the Athy maltings, each link is influenced by Minch Malt’s dedicated malting barley agronomy team also known colloquially as “barley doctors”.

The barley doctors work hand in hand with nature and their dedicated malting barley farm families whose distinguished heritage runs through many generations in the production of premium products. They operate in a sustainable fashion to protect the environment, enhance social interaction and improve the viability of the industry year in, year out.  Minch Malt take agricultural sustainability very seriously, indeed they pride themselves on being verified members of Origin Green. Origin Green is the only sustainability programme in the world that operates on a national scale, uniting government, the private sector and food producers through Bord Bia, the Irish Food Board.

Traceability

A valuable feature of Minch Malt’s supply chain is that it can supply customers with 100% honest to goodness traceability from seed to glass. The kernel of this traceability manifests itself in the recording of live field data in a cloud-based farm tool called FarmFlo. This tool tracks live data such as field GPS location, seed variety, sowing date, weather conditions etc. for each dedicated malting barley field in each farm. This enhances the malting barley produced from a quality and unique selling point of view. This is demonstrated in the provenance of their unique Hook Head Series Malts and as specific as their “one farm, one batch” of beer or spirit malt.

Hook Head Series

The Ring of Hook, a small peninsula in the south east of Ireland is renowned for producing premium quality malting barley. As the area is surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, the soils have been splashed with sea spray for millennia, resulting in high sand and sodium levels. Throughout the growing season, the malting barley is subjected to sea mists and storms, which deposit salt onto the crops, changing their colour from a rich green to completely white and back again. The Hook Head Series is produced by 11 specialist growers, many of whom are third or fourth generation malting barley growers. These elite growers epitomise the age old secrets that make renowned the Hook Head Series, “the perfect blend of heritage and quality malt”.

Many More Years to Come!

A cherished quality of the Minch Malt family is their passion for producing premium malts by always respecting tradition whilst embracing technology to deliver an un-paralleled malting barley supply chain. After 170 years, the proud people at Minch Malt want to make sure that the Minch legacy in malting continues to grow for many more years to come!