BA Announces 2020 Research Grants

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The Brewers Association has announced its annual research grant awards, with funding for a variety of barley and malt projects.

Work at the University of Nebraska will work to develop winter barleys to expand viable growing regions. Researchers will examine existing barley lines and create and test locally adapted varietals in five locations in Kansas, Nebraska, and Oklahoma.

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At Cornell University, staff will examine how pre-harvest sprouting resistance affects malting quality and seed dormancy. With increased acreage being dedicated to barley in the midwest and northeast, which often see rainy summers that put barley harvests at risk of pre-harvest sprouting, spring barley that is resistant to pre-harvest sprouting can help prevent crops from deteriorating in quality or being lost entirely. However, the impact of resistance has an unknown effect on malting quality and seed dormancy.

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The staff at Montana State is examining the interaction between the malting process and underlying barley genetics. They’ll grow four diverse varieties of barley, malt each variety following nine different schedules, and do chemical and sensory analysis on the 36 samples. From there, 12 samples will be chosen for Rahr Malting to be produced at a small scale and chemically analyzed.

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In a separate project, MSU will test 25 winter barleys in no-till and conventional tilled systems to examine the impact on key traits, breeding and testing about 8,000 crosses for winter survivability and malting quality, and compare spring barleys in conventional and organic systems for suitability to organic management or stability across both growing systems.

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Researchers at the University of California-Davis will continue work at introducing genes that encourage low protein content into existing lines of malting barley. Given that the American Malting Barley Association recommends protein content below 12 percent, while optimizing nitrogen fertilization for yield can lead to elevated levels of protein, their goal is to reduce protein levels without limiting grain yields.

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Virginia Polytechnic is working to evaluate genetics and identify markers associated with improved malting quality, with a goal of accelerating development of two-row and six-row barleys for the mid-Atlantic and southeastern US. Barleys in that region must hold up to hot, humid growing conditions, and the identification of genetic markers can help accelerate development of commercially viable varieties.

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At Oregon State University, barleys developed by OSU will be compared to a control barley to examine the contributions of variety and terroir to beer flavor. The work will explore the effect of terroir by documenting soil and environmental attributes, while focusing on commercially viable winter and facultative two-row barleys.

North Dakota State is working with researchers at Rutgers to grow 25 barley varieties in six eastern states to determine strains’ viability and malting quality in areas outside of their adapted areas.

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Funding also includes projects that examine the impact of nitrogen and sulfur fertilizers on hop quality, identifying genetics in wild hops that are resistant to powdery mildew, controlling hop enzymes that result in over-attenuated beers, and researching the existence of thiol flavor-precursors in hops. Another project will examine biofilm in chemically treating beer draught lines.

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The full BA announcement can be found here.