Maris Otter Malt
Maris Otter malt is highly praised for use as a base malt in all English style beers. I ordered some for the milk stout I am brewing later on in the month. After I clicked “submit” on my order, I decided to learn more about this base malt. Here is the Maris Otter malt profile.
The malt was developed by the good doctor, Dr. G. D. H. Bell at the Plant Breeding Institute and was introduced to the public in 1966. He crossed two different barley varieties, Proctor and Pioneer.
Although I couldn’t find where the name “Otter” came from, “Maris” was the name of the lane where the institute was located in Trumpington, Cambridgeshire, England.
It is a winter barley which means it is sown in autumn and germinate before winter. The malt was bred to brew cask conditioned ales. Many sources stated how forgiving this malt is in the brewing process. I am not sure what that means but it’s probably a commentary on how it handles mash temps or duration.
Flavor: Brings a nutty flavor to your beers. Other sources claimed a biscuity flavor.
Color: 3.5- 4.5°L
Body: N/A
Use: Base malt for all English style beers. It could be a good experiment to brew 2 beers – one using American 2-row and the other using Maris Otter and compare/contrast the tastes.
on December 10th, 2011 at 12:36 pm
My personal favorite base malt. So smooth it’s unreal.
on December 10th, 2011 at 1:55 pm
I agree with derek. It is delicious. Try making an american IPA with it. Fabulous.
on December 10th, 2011 at 3:13 pm
I think what’s neat about this malt is that if you don’t have a hoppy beer, it will pick up on the biscuit flavors that are on it. If you do have a hoppy brew then it helps, “round out” the beer giving it more of a back bone. The only complaint that I could ever have about it is that you won’t get a super light color. So if appearance is you’re thing then probably pils is a better malt you know? But for me the taste is everything and a slightly darker brew is good for me. I just compensate with out using as many specialty grains, or just adding cara-pils or something that really won’t make a change in the color unlike crystal malt or something like that.
on December 12th, 2011 at 10:25 pm
Great summary on this grain – I’ll probably try it out in my Oatmeal Stout one of these days – I just used British 2 row in that recipe, but this may be an even better base malt for that style.
on December 13th, 2011 at 9:52 am
I love MO. I use it for APAs, IPAs and ESBs but it’s main skill (for me) is it’s hability to create a fantastic Barley Wine. 100% MO, boiled for 2-3 hours will caramelize and concentrate so much flavor… You guys should try it out.
on December 13th, 2011 at 8:55 pm
[...] I dug up information on Maris Otter malt, I found many references to Golden Promise malt. There seems to be some debate about which is a [...]
on January 7th, 2012 at 3:06 pm
I love Maris Otter for a base malt. We use it for our Turmoil IPA. It really has a great bready light nutty chracteristic.
on February 3rd, 2012 at 3:40 pm
[...] is made from a single barley variety grown in the UK. It seems to be a newer variety than Maris Otter, and it is a spring variety. Fawcett follows the traditional floor malting procedure when [...]