Barley worries

The climate change threatens beer production in Australia and New Zealand says scientist Jim Salinger.

In a paper delivered to the Institute of Brewing & Distilling convention in Auckland in April, Jim Salinger said that climate change in the decades ahead could impede the production of high quality malting barleys in both Australia and New Zealand. He predicted that growing areas in southern Australia would be hit harder than those in New Zealand and the malting and brewing industries would need to change to new varieties of barley.

In Adelaide in April Joe White Maltings and Coopers Brewery stated that a new variety of malting barley (Flagship), developed by the barley improvement group of the University of Adelaide, had produced significant benefits for farmers and brewers in trials in South Australia last year. Flagship has improved frost and drought tolerance plus better grain yield and disease resistance.