New York Wants To Grow It’s Own

Malt Barley that is.

If you haven't noticed lately, there are a lot of breweries around the Capitol Region. We're getting a great selection of local brews that are sourcing 20% of ingredients locally. That number is going to be moving toward 90% by 2024, according to the Troy Record.

In order to hit that number, New York State is going to have to start increasing the amount of malt barley it produces from 2,000 acres to roughly 30,000 acres. What's holding us back is Federal Insurance. NYS isn't covered by the USDA malt barley crop insurance, so Senator Chuck Schumer is working to change that.

A rally was held Monday (1/12/2015) at Albany Distilling with Senator Schumer and a who's who's list of local breweries that remind us why we need to step up our malt barley production. Among the local breweries were Albany Distilling, Indian Ladder Farmstead Brewery & Cidery, Harvest Spirits Farm Distillery, C.H. Evans Brewing Company at the Albany Pump Station and of course Brown’s Brewing.