Lucky Bay Brewer co-founder and owner Nigel Metz explains brewing and malting to Converge Esperance participants. Photo: Geoff Vivian.
Farmers and those who service them had a morning of field trips on Thursday as part of the Converge Esperance agriculture stream.
They spent taking in on-farm automation demos, snail cameras and a recap of the Nuffield scholar scheme, ending in at tour of Lucky Bay Brewery to see how local barley is made into beer.
For its first few years Lucky Bay Brewery specialised in beer made from raw barley so as to use as much produce as possible from local grain growers, but was expanding to produce malted barley.
Brewery founder Nigel Metz explained the barley malting and roasting processes, passing around small bowls of raw, malted and roasted barley and inviting participants to taste them.
Much of his presentation was about the process of malting and brewing, including the chemistry behind various beer styles, and also the economics behind the decision to become a bulk malt provider.
While Lucky Bay has become a highly successful brasserie and entertainment venue, Mr Metz said they had limited ability to provide beer to retailers due to market constraints.
He said canned beer cost considerably more both to package and supply owing to transport costs, and keg beer could be difficult to sell to pubs who had signed supply deals with major breweries.
They had therefore turned their attention to becoming a malt producer, using the range of beer products to promote the raw material to brewers worldwide.
Mr Metz said they were addressing various environmental compliance issues before construction of the malting officially began at the back of the existing brewery.
Staff then treated participants to lunch with an invitation to sample the many Lucky Bay brews.
