ANDRZEJ KRAUZE
This past summer, exceptionally hot and humid for many, was brutal for the small-scale barley farmers who have been cropping up in the northeastern United States—especially for those who intended to sell grain for malting and beer brewing.
“We had really bad conditions last year in New England,” says Andrea Stanley, who along with her husband Christian owns and operates the Hadley, Massachusetts–based micro-malting outfit Valley Malt. “During the last week of June and first week of July we had 90- to 95-degree, high-humidity weather, [with] rainfall almost every day. It was a really bad scene: we were just sitting on our hands, like ‘Ugh, this is bad—I need a beer!’”
While some of the farmers who supply the Stanleys with barley for malting still ...
