Honey Malt
Riverbend Honey Malt is made in the German brumaltz tradition. The germinating grain is starved of oxygen before kilning, which drives the sugar development that gives this style its name. Riverbend then kilns it at Light Munich temperatures, landing at 15 to 25 SRM.
The flavor is maple syrup and fig over graham cracker, finishing with black tea and a light oak tannin. Sweeter and rounder than a crystal malt of the same color, with a honeyed richness that caramel malts cannot reproduce.
Using Honey Malt
- Riverbend publishes 5 to 25% of the grist.
- At 5 to 10% it adds a honeyed lift to a brown ale or bock without obvious sweetness.
- At 15 to 25% the malt leads, which suits Belgian dubbel, strong English ales and honey-forward specialty beers.
- Go easy. This malt is intensely sweet at the top of its range, so taste before scaling up.
- DP over 80 means it carries some enzymatic power of its own.
Styles: English brown ale, Belgian dubbel, bock, doppelbock, Scottish ale, honey-forward specialty beers
Specifications
| Grain | 2-row barley, brumaltz method |
|---|---|
| Color | 15 to 25 SRM |
| Max usage rate | 5 to 25% of grist |
| Extract (FG, dry basis) | Over 78% |
| Protein | 10 to 11% |
| S/T ratio | 50 to 55 |
| Min diastatic power | Over 80 |
| Min alpha amylase | Over 20 |
| Bag size | 50 lb |
About Riverbend Malt House
Brent Manning and Brian Simpson founded Riverbend in Asheville in 2010, the first craft malt house east of the Mississippi. It is now the first Certified Regenified malt house in the world. Grain comes from family-owned farms inside roughly a 500-mile radius of Asheville, across North Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, Virginia and Florida. They still hand-rake grain on a traditional malting floor alongside modern germination-kiln vessels, and in 2025 they supplied more than 300 breweries and distilleries.