Cheers to that: GrainSearch’s Bottler and Malteurop’s Kiwi receive malt accreditation

Two new barley varieties — one trialled in WA — have received malt accreditation in time for seeding this year.

Barley Australia announced this accreditation of GrainSearch’s Bottler and Malteurop Australia’s Kiwi varieties on Friday.

Both varieties were accredited under Barley Australia’s malting barley evaluation process, which involves assessment and malt trials run by the Malting and Brewing Industry Barley Technical Committee.

Bottler is a medium rainfall, mid-season maturity variety with high fermentability and best suited to the export market.

The variety — grown in WA and Victoria in 2020 — is designed for similar growing environments as Seed Force Australia’s RGT Planet and GrainSearch’s Westminster.

Kiwi is a high rainfall variety from Malteurop Australia and well suited to domestic and export markets.

It is intended to be grown largely in Victoria in the same environments as Westminster and Malteurop’s Fairview.

While Kiwi was submitted as a medium fermentability variety, trials indicated it was best for the high fermentability category.

For each new variety of malting barley bred in Australia, there are a rigorous series of evaluations the variety must pass in order to gain accreditation as a recognised malting barley variety.

After new barley varieties have been routinely screened for agronomic and processing performance by the breeding institutions, they are subjected to pilot and commercial scale malting and then brewing using methodology for sugar adjunct brewing and starch adjunct brewing.

Full accreditation is achieved after a second season’s successful evaluation results have been examined and recommendation for approval by the Australian barley industry’s technical evaluation panel has been accepted by the board of Barley Australia.

The Barley Australia malting barley evaluation and accreditation process is recognised as the required standard for the determination of malting barley for all new Australian malting barley varieties.

Barley Australia is developing a post accreditation program to bolster market adoption of newly-accredited malt varieties.

Growers looking for Bottler for planting in 2022 can contact Seednet.

Bottler is protected by plant breeder’s rights and will have an End Point Royalty of $4 per tonne (excluding GST).

To find out more about Kiwi, contact Malteurop’s Charlie Hill at charlie.hill@malteurop.com.

For more information visit barleyaustralia.com.au.