To find out how Malt is made click here to read more.

Types of Maltster:

Brewer Maltsters

Distiller Maltsters

Sales Maltsters

Click here for all member company listings which shows Maltster type.

Sales Maltsters

Use the drop down menu below to find information of all sales maltsters.

Malt Exporters Group Members

Use the drop down menu below to find information on members of the MAGB Malt Exporters Group.


The UK malting industry is the third largest in the world. It has a long history of supplying fine malts for a wide range of purposes, but its main use is providing malts for brewing and distilling. It provides malt to 14 of the largest 20 brewers in the world, as well as supplying the smallest micro breweries.


The UK is able to grow good quality malting barley, and UK maltsters buy around 1.8 million tonnes of this every year, from which they make about 1.5 million tonnes of malt. What is the malting process

There are three types of maltsters:
Brewer Maltsters, who own and operated maltings for their own brewing needs.
Distiller Maltster's who own and operate maltings for their own distilling needs.
Sales Maltsters, who will make malt to a customer's specification, for the brewing, distilling or food industries. Some sales maltsters also offer a range of 'specialist malts' which have undergone a special kilning or roasting regime, and offer a wide range of flavour/colour options.

The Chart below shows the use of malt made by UK maltsters in the year ending December 31st 2005.


Click here if you would like to see a map of the countries that UK maltsters export malt to.

Click here if you would like to see a graph of UK malt use since 1987.

How the UK malting industry works to safeguard its products.
The UK malting industry has cooperated for many years to ensure the security of using UK malt made from UK grown barley. Maltsters have worked together, through the MAGB, to pool information on the barley type and quality they need to produce the malt to meet their customers' specifications.

MAGB members are actively involved in a barley variety and selection process that has gone on for over 50 years. They also work closely with the Brewers and Licensed Retailers Association (BLRA) and the Scotch Whisky Association (SWA) to produce the internationally known Institute of Brewing and Distilling Recommended List of malting barley varieties, which is reviewed every year.

Malting barley varieties are only placed on this list after an extensive series of malting, brewing or distilling tests over several growing seasons.

For more background information on the operations of The IBD Malting Barley Committee

Do you wish to see the current IOB recommended list of malting barley varieties?

Download the Macro-Scale Brewing Trial Pro-Forma; Distilling Trial Pro-Forma; Malting Trial Pro-Forma

In addition to providing information to the barley growers on the varieties that the malt market needs, UK maltsters also take great care to ensure that the barley that they take into their sites is stored not only by separate variety, but also by protein content within each segregation. Further information on this is given in Controlling the intake of malting barley for malt production.

The UK malting industry's due diligence on food safety compliance in maltsters' raw material.
Great care is taken with the purchase and the intake of barley to the maltsters' storage. Long standing practice has been to ensure that the grain has the correct 'nose', that is the unique smell of fresh and correctly stored grain. Any taint to that smell, particularly any fustiness, is likely to mean a rejection of the load by the maltster, as it could indicate the presence of storage mould on the grain. This could impact on quality in two ways:
1) The germination of the grain, and hence its ability to be changed into malt, could be below the 98% required by the maltster. The germinative capacity test carried out before each load is accepted would quickly show if that is a problem.
2) If the taint is due to storage moulds, this is likely because the grain has been stored badly. Storage moulds such as Aspergillus can produce mycotoxins under adverse storage conditions, particularly if the grain moisture is above 14%.

When mycotoxins were first mentioned as a possible health hazard in 1998, the UK malting industry was quick to check that it was removing any possibility of mycotoxins being introduced with its raw material, malting barley. It quickly found that the simple 'nose' test, introduced by maltsters over 100 years ago, coupled with the UKs ability, and practice, of drying barley down below 14.5% before long term storage meant there was no problem. A series of MAGB co-ordinated sampling and testing regimes has underlined the effectiveness of that diligent control. Would you like more information on UK maltsters control of mycotoxins?

The MAGB co-ordinates other testing for food safety issues, for example to ensure that the maximum legal levels for heavy metals in UK malting barley, and hence malt, are not exceeded. Would you like to see a short record of those results

Reports of the results of other industry cooperative tasks, or collations of industry data can be found under Food Safety Due Diligence

Whilst individual companies compete strongly for business in the market place, there has been a history since 1827 of cooperation in non-competitive areas. Once example of this has been the development of standards of excellence in malting proficiency. In 1981 the MAGB held the first Malting Diploma examination for the malting industry, open to senior technical maltsters with a minimum of 3 years malting experience. This was the first such award in the malting world, and has attracted candidates from outside the UK for several years. This examination takes place every two years, and candidates from UK, the USA, and South Africa sat for the 2004 examination. CLICK HERE for a full list of all successful candidates since 1981.


Click here to view the syllabus, guidance notes and application form for the 2008 Malting Diploma examination as a PDF file (You will need Acrobat Reader Version 4.0 or above to view)

Since 1993 the MAGB has held an examination for those involved in operating malting plants, called the Certificate of Malting Competence. Until 2001, because of strong demand, this was restricted to UK candidates. However Canadian maltsters took part in the exam in 2003, and Russian maltsters took part in the 2005 exam. The next CMC Exam will be held in 2007, and the syllabus is available from the Publciation section of the website.