Homebrew club makes magic with Avalon malt

This week, Charleston, West Virginia, was awash in beers made with the new Avalon malt. The beers were featured at the Kanawha Valley Homebrew Club’s (KVHC) brewing with regionally-sourced malt competition.

Sixteen entries, all made with at least 80 percent Avalon Pale Malt from Riverbend Malt House in Asheville, were sipped, slurped, gargled, and judged by club meeting attendees. Their Members’ Choice turned out to be a beautiful pale ale/strong bitter brewed by club member Christian Robinson.

The winning beer, named Riverbend Ransom, contained 90 percent Avalon Pale Malt and 10 percent caramel malt, along with Centennial and Chinook hop additions in the boil. The Avalon pale malt showed through and was accentuated by the light hopping with classic American hops. The 5.7% ABV brew made a very positive impression on the crowd that attended the event.

“It was originally designed as a simple American Pale Ale,” says Christian, “but the malt character drove it more to an English Pale Ale style.” Whatever you call it, the beer was a winner.

Robinson is a long-standing club member who has a background working in the brewing industry. His beers are always thoughtful, well-made, and flavorful. (See his recipe here)

Other Avalon beer finalists

The voting was tight and two other beers finished just short of the winner. We found all these to be crowd-pleasers.

Finishing 2nd was Fest-A-valon, a German Festbier-style ale by Wesley Butler. Butler, who is one of the club’s younger members, shows great promise with his brewing skills. Fest-A-Valon used a Dusseldorf Alt ale yeast that produced a very clean result allowing the Avalon to burst through. His addition of a touch of both Vienna and Munich malts showed how well Avalon blends with traditional European malts.

Third place went to a lovely, well-balanced English Mild made by club member Dan Tate. A Mild needs maltiness and character in its flavor, while keeping its ABV low. And in this beer, the Avalon brought it. While straying from your normal browner style Milds, this Avalon-centered Mild gave you a refreshing, moderate-strength pale malt flavor that blended well with the traditional hopping.

Pro-Potential beer selected

Adding to the fun of the event was the selection of the beer with the most commercial beer potential. Judging that was Ross Williams, head brewer at Bad Shepherd Beer Company. After carefully evaluating all 16 brews, he selected the Blonde Ale by Jaime Bailey of Charleston. The beer exhibited a richer creaminess than you might expect in a typical blonde ale.

“The beer had a beautiful golden hue and a lacy bright white head that gave way to a rich but balanced profile,” Ross noted. “It would be equally at home on a sunny patio or with a robust meal.”

Jamie Bailey is one of the club’s newer brewers but is a guy who has already demonstrated an acute brewing talent. He just makes good beers. (Check out Bailey’s beer recipe here)

Across the beers in this competition, Avalon Malt proved its versatility by shining through in a variety of beer styles. It provided lots of fermentables to go with attractive light sugary baked-goods aromas.

Competition promotes local malts

The competition, sponsored by BrilliantStream.com and its WV Beer Roads podcast, provided the Avalon malt to the club and prizes to the winners. WV Beer Roads cohost, Erin McCoy, helped out and also contributed toward the winners’ prizes.

Each brewer was given 10 pounds of Riverbend Avalon Pale Malt and tasked with brewing a beer that let the malt shine through. It’s the second time that Brilliant Stream has sponsored a club competition featuring local/regionally produced malts.

“This event is a lot of fun,” states KVHC president Chris Brown, “but even more, it gives home brewers the chance to brew using local craft malts like those from Riverbend Malt. We look forward to doing more events like this.”

The Avalon beer judging was held at Charleston Nano-Brewery, which hosts the KVHC monthly meetings. Kenny Graley, the Nano-Brewery’s owner/brewer, also provided prizes of hops and other brewing-related items to the event.

More locally-sourced ingredients

Since its founding in 2009, Brilliant Stream has had a mission of promoting the use of more locally sourced ingredients in craft beer. With most malt used in craft brewing coming from out West, Canada, or Europe, it’s so good to see our regional agriculture industry gaining skill in growing and producing more high-quality brewing ingredients in the eastern regions of the U.S. Avalon pale malt is surely a winner sprouting from those efforts.

Riverbend Malt House describes its Avalon pale malt as having “aromas of sugar cookie, melon, and honey,” with a “mouthfeel that is rich, exhibiting a creaminess not often encountered in a Pale malt.” From the results of the KVHC competition, we’d agree with those descriptors.

Over the past decade, the Avalon barley strain was developed Virginia Tech’s Small Grain Breeding Program. Growers in the mid-South and mid-Atlantic regions just began producing commercial quantities of it in 2022. The barley is being malted by Riverbend Malt House and other maltsters in an attempt to bring more variety and better brewing quality to locally produced malts in the upper regions of the Southeast.

In West Virginia, Weathered Ground Brewery produces several beers using the Avalon malts from Riverbend.

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Get involved in your local homebrew club: Kanawha Valley Homebrew Club website link