Notes by Hugh Turner and Danny Howell
Warminster has a long association with the brewing of beer and the manufacture of its primary raw material, malt. During the 18th and early 19th centuries the importance of Warminster as a corn market attracted customers to drink the local brews and provided local barley from which to make the malt, the town being situated in a cereal growing area.
During this period there were many (allegedly as many as sixty) working malthouses in the town. Even during the declining years of Warminster’s industrial history, in the second half of the 19th century, a Mr. John Warren, himself a maltster, remarked on the twelve malthouses with an ‘average steeping power of sixteen quarters’ (one quarter of barley = 4 cwt) operating and thriving in the town.
So what is this product called malt, which held for so long such an important place in employment and prosperity for the area? The art of malting has been in existence since the time of the ancient Egyptians, with cereals, mainly barley, being grown so that their large complex molecules of starch, cellulose and protein can be broken down during malting to smaller molecules which can be assimilated by yeast during the brewing process. The malting process itself begins with the maltster buying the most suitable variety and quality of barley for his purpose. Then all the barley is dried to an average of around 12% moisture content, to provide safe storage against insects and to prevent hot/damp patches in the heaps or bins. Drying also helps to break any possible natural dormancy which may reduce the grain’s suitability for malting and standardise the condition of each batch of barley.
Next comes the steeping or immersing in water of the barley (at Pound Street Maltings approximately 10 tonnes per day). The maltster decides on a suitable programme of water immersion, which usually involves three periods when it is under water and three draining or ‘resting’ periods, during a total of about 72 hours. Control of the water temperature is critical and the Pound Street well (giving about two thirds of the total water required) provides water at a constant 52 degrees Fahrenheit throughout the year, which is ideal for ‘steeping’. At the conclusion of the steeping cycle, the barley should have taken up about 45% by weight of water.
During the 19th century, excise duty was levied upon malt rather than beer, so that customs officers visited maltings and carried out a volumetric measurement of the wet barley from the steep and the malt floors.
Stories are told of maltsters keeping the water uptake of barley to a minimum in steep, until the customs officer had left the building and then pouring water onto the heaps! It is interesting to note that there is still evidence of this bygone age in the inscription visible over one of the doors at the front of the Pound Street malthouse, reading “William Frank Morgan, licensed maltster”.
Barley from the steep tank is ‘caste’ or discharged onto the malting floors, where in the past it sometimes remained for as long as eight or nine days, slowly germinating. Nowadays, however, four day flooring is more normal with ‘superior varieties’ of barley, and improved malting techniques.
Once on the malt floor, the wet grain begins to grow and by the fourth day has small, white curly roots showing. In order that barley may grow evenly and without too much rootlet growth or respiration loss, the ‘pieces’ of barley are ‘dragged’ (in some areas called ‘ploughed’) by a traditional wooden-handled three-pronged implement being pulled through it by one man, giving a wave-like appearance to the germinating grain. Traditionally in the past the barley also had to be ‘turned’ with a wooden tyned fork, but this has now been succeeded by the ‘Robinson floor turner’ which has electrically driven mower-type blades and is slowly pulled through the malt by a ‘floorman’. Temperatures in the germinating barley increase naturally during ‘flooring’ from about 60 degrees Fahrenheit to 70 degrees Fahrenheit. When the breakdown of the large molecules in the barley corns is completed to the maltster’s satisfaction, the green malt, as the growing barley is called at that stage, is loaded into a kiln where its moisture content is reduced to about 4% by application of high air flows and controlled heat.
The heat source in the past was first from timber and then coal mined in Somerset. In more recent times anthracite has been purchased as ‘arsenic free’, from particular collieries in South Wales. Originally, coal was delivered on pack horse, mules or carriers carts from Somerset, with loads of malt being taken back for Somerset and Devon brewers. Now, however, one looks to oil and natural gas, as cheaper sources of energy and for better control of kilning.
Kilning of malt has several purposes, firstly the purely practical ones of reducing the weight of the product for transportation and to achieve safe storage. It also temporarily arrests the action of the enzymes which break down the starch molecules and therefore ensures that there is no waste of the carbohydrates required by the brewer for his yeast. The colour and flavour of the malt can be adjusted at the kilning stage to suit various customer requirements.
A basic malt kiln in most malthouses over the past two hundred years has combined a recognisable pyramid (normally slate tiles) with a space at the top to allow steam to escape and a flat cover of tin or steel on four legs, over the outlet. The ‘drying’ chamber would have a tiled floor, the tiles about one foot square and one and a half inches thick, with many little ‘roses’ of holes, for the air to pass through.
Green malt would be loaded to a depth overall of about 7 to 8 inches and ‘turned’ at least twice a day with firstly wooden tyne forks and then as it dried, wooden shovels. The whole drying process would probably take about 72 hours or more, relying originally on pure convection draughts and later a fan mounted at the top of the pyramid to suck out the steam. Under the tiles would be a large room in which a ‘spreader’, being a metal square or disc, suspended over the furnace to equalise distribution of the hot air. The furnace itself would be of brick and so designed to give maximum control and maximum draught. The art of ‘firing’ a malt kiln in the days of coal fires depended on the skill and experience of the fireman in producing the right amount of heat – not too much to spoil the malt, not too little so as to produce inadequate drying.
The replacement kiln at Pound Street Maltings was designed to dry a batch of green malt loaded to about two and a half feet deep in approximately 22 hours, without requiring any manual ‘turning’ or attention. The principle is to provide a sufficiently strong fan beneath the kiln to force air up through the malt in conjunction with a well controlled heat source (oil or gas). The kiln is constructed with a flat, pre-caste concrete roof drying chamber with wedge wire floor, beneath which is a pressure chamber where the air pressure builds up under the ‘bed’ of malt. This chamber contains a circular, slightly conical spreader for even flow of air. Below the pressure chamber is the furnace, the fan and its ducting.
Once dried the malt is put through a screening process, whereby the dried rootlets are removed from the corns and any small corns and dust are also removed. The oldest piece of equipment used at Warminster’s Pound Street Maltings, the ‘Malt Screen’, consisted of a rotating barrel of four wire drum sections with metal paddles inside. This machine was manufactured by Messrs. Robert Boby of Bury St. Edmunds and supplied to Bailey’s Maltings of Warminster on 13th January 1887. It was purchased by E. S. Beaven and installed in the Pound Street Maltings in 1890.
A working day in the maltings begins at 7 a.m. with the five man labour force (one man each day is on ‘day off’) ‘dragging’ the germinating barley, then shovelling the malt from the kiln, which has been dried during the previous 24 hours. One man then begins to ‘caste’ wet barley from the steep tank and the others commence loading the next batch of green malt into the kiln.
The foreman is responsible for weighing the ‘malt culms’ (dried rootlets) from the malt screen and supervising the weighing of the bulk dried malt being ‘run up’ into a hopper for outloading to the Guinness brewery in London.
Two men finish the casting of the wet grain from the steep tank and this batch of material is then spread evenly over the top and bottom malting floors by use of a ‘power shovel’, to a depth of about 4 inches. A power shovel consists of an electrically driven winch, with a 40 metre haulage cable (a 12 volt inner core operating the control switch) coupled to a 6 foot board, handles and two wheels. This tool is also used when discharging the green malt from the floors, before kilning.
The remainder of the day, up to 4 p.m., is occupied with ensuring that sufficient barley is available over the steeping tanks, the germinating barley is adequately dragged and turned, malt is outloaded to bulk lorries, by-products (malt culins, barley screenings, kiln dust (rootlets from under the kiln) and malt/barley dust (from aspiration) are weighed, ‘bagged-up’ and outloaded. All the by-products are sold to various compounders or local farmers for use as part of a mixed cattle food.
During each evening, one man returns to the maltings to ‘drag’ any germinating barley that needs attention.
Due to the higher ambient temperatures during June to September, it is very difficult to control the growth of the germinating barley so the production of good quality malt in traditional maltings without air conditioning is impossible. Malt is therefore manufactured from October to May inclusive and June and early July are a period for holidays and maintenance. As soon as the harvest begins, usually early August and throughout September, sufficient barley is purchased, dried and stored to meet malt sales during the following year.
Until the last war, it was normal for workers in the maltings to be laid off at the end of each malting season and to find work on farms or with timber companies and builders for the summer months. They then had to re-apply for their jobs in the following October, with no certainty that they would be employed, particularly as was the case during the depression of the 1930s.
In the years prior to 1961, ten men were employed in the Pound Street Maltings. Two were used purely as ‘barley men’ in drying, storing, ‘bagging off’ (as all barley at this time was in 2 cwt hessian sacks) and tipping bags to ensure constant supplies to the steeping tanks. There was one man who worked only at night to attend the growing barley and carry out such duties as required. The foreman and deputy supervised the day to day operations.
Following partial mechanisation in 1961, the workforce was reduced to 6 men. The ‘nightman’ was dispensed with and the germinating barley was processed by ‘dragging’ on overtime in the late evening.
One of the significant changes to affect working arrangements in the maltings was the advent of ‘bulk handling’. Traditionally both malt and barley had been transported and stored in hessian sacks. At the Pound Street Maltings in October 1958, malt was for the first tirne dispatched by specially constructed bulk lorries (Bartrum’s Road Services) to the brewery in London.
Prior to that date, sacks of malt were driven to the Warminster Railway Station on flat-bed lorries and off-loaded to railway trucks for onward transmission to the Park Royal Brewery.
The farming community resisted change to bulk handling, for more than another decade, but by 1974 virtually all barley was being delivered to the Maltings and the store at Codford in bulk lorries. The large sack hire industry which had grown up around the needs of agriculture, has in consequence nearly disappeared.
The malting company operating from Pound Street Maltings, with the office and laboratory at 43 East Street, Wanninster and barley drying/storage at Codford, E. S Beaven Ltd., operated as a wholly owned subsidiary company of the brewers Guinness. The late Dr E. S. Beaven, besides being a maltster, was an internationally famous barley breeder.
Edwin Sloper Beaven (1857 – 1941) joined the local brewing/malting company of William Frank Morgan in 1876 and married the owner’s sister, Miss Margaret Morgan in 1881. He later acquired the business with several local maltings, including Pound Street and Market Place at Warminster and Montpelier, Bristol. In these premises Dr Beaven malted for many years for the Guinness brewery in Dublin and later for the Guinness brewery, Park Royal, London, until his death in 1941. He was awarded his Honorary Doctorate at Cambridge University in 1922 for his services to agriculture through plant breeding and also received the Horace Brown medal from the Institute of Brewing.
After Dr. Beaven’s death and throughout the 1939/45 War, the malting business was administered by the trustees of Dr. Beaven’s estate under the direction of Mr. Harold Sims. The maltings continued to produce malt for the Guinness brewery at Park Royal still using the old, traditional methods.
1947 saw the formation of E. S. Beaven (Maltings) Ltd., as a subsidiary of Arthur Guinness Son & Co. (Great Britain) Ltd. This company then operated from Market Place and Pound Street Maltings, Warminster, and Montpelier Maltings, Bristol, and the East Street office Warminster. Dr Beaven’s daughter, Miss Alice Beaven, was appointed a director in 1948 and remained on the board until her death in 1970. Mr Harold Wickham was manager of the maltings from 1947 to 1952, when he retired and was succeeded by Mr. Norman Oakey.
Mr. Norman Oakey was tragically killed in 1971 in a car accident on the Bath to Warminster road, when returning from buying barley at the Bristol market. Mr. Hugh Turner was then appointed manager and subsequently a director of the company.
A ‘Winkler pressure’ kiln was installed at Pound Street Maltings in 1952, replacing the number 2 conical, coal-fired kiln. In addition, a new barley store to hold approximately 1,000 tonnes of barley was added at the rear of the malthouse. 1961 saw an increase in production at Pound Street Maltings by virtue of the use of partial mechanisation on the malt floors and kiln loading.
In 1968, the Market Place Maltings, Warminster, which had been run entirely by one man, with barley and malt being conveyed to and from Pound Street, was closed when the process operative retired, and in 1971, the Bristol Montpelier Maltings being in a very poor state of repair, were also closed.
In recent years, in spite of its age and the constant competition from modem, mechanical maltings both in Great Britain and abroad, the Pound Street Maltings continued to prosper and produce quality malt for its parent company. In addition, Warminster became the administration centre for the Beaven Group, which has maltings in Diss and Great Yarmouth, Norfolk.
At the time of these notes going to press, the closure of the Pound Street Maltings was announced by its parent company who said they would continue operations from their other ma/rings, particularly in Scotland, from July 1994 onwards.