Malt Houses in The United Kingdom
Many villages had a malt house in the eighteenth century, supplying the needs of local publicans, estates and home brewers. Malt houses are typically long, low buildings, no more than two storeys high, in a vernacular style. The germination of barley is hindered by high temperatures, so many malt houses only operated in the winter. This provided employment for agricultural workers whose labour was not much in demand during the winter months.
During the nineteenth century many small breweries disappeared. Improved techniques allowed larger breweries and specialist maltsters to build their own maltings and operate year round. These were often housed in multi-storey buildings. It was also more efficient to transport malt than barley to the brewery, so many large breweries set up their own maltings near railways in the barley growing districts of eastern England.
Towards the end of the nineteenth century, pneumatic malting was introduced, in which the barley is aerated and the temperature carefully controlled, accelerating the germination. Large malting floors were no longer necessary, but power consumption was high, so floor malting held on well into the twentieth century. Only a handful of traditional malting floors are still in use.
Read more about this topic: Malthouse
Famous quotes containing the words malt, houses, united and/or kingdom:
“And malt does more than Milton can
To justify God’s ways to man.”
—A.E. (Alfred Edward)
“Midway the lake we took on board two manly-looking middle-aged men.... I talked with one of them, telling him that I had come all this distance partly to see where the white pine, the Eastern stuff of which our houses are built, grew, but that on this and a previous excursion into another part of Maine I had found it a scarce tree; and I asked him where I must look for it. With a smile, he answered that he could hardly tell me.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The United States is the only great nation whose government is operated without a budget. The fact is to be the more striking when it is considered that budgets and budget procedures are the outgrowth of democratic doctrines and have an important part in developing the modern constitutional rights.... The constitutional purpose of a budget is to make government responsive to public opinion and responsible for its acts.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)
“Rev. J.D. Liddell: The Kingdom of God is not a democracy. The Lord never seeks re- election. There’s no discussion. No deliberation. No referenda as to which road to take. There’s one right, one wrong. One absolute ruler.
Sandy: A dictator, you mean.
Rev. J.D. Liddell: Aye, but a benign, loving dictator.”
—Colin Welland (b. 1934)