Pursuing an independent spirit with Bairds Toll Malt
As Scots and adopted Scots around the world gather to celebrate Burns Night, there’ll be an extra special dram to choose from as Lochlea Distillery releases their first bottling. Lochlea is a new distillery located in southern Scotland, and on the very same farm that...
Exploring the Spirit Profile with Crafty Distillery
We recently received the first box of four Billy&Co new make spirit samples from Crafty Distillery. The Billy&Co new make spirit is a direct result of our Early Evaluation Programme (EEP) and we were delighted to receive them. The Early Evaluation Programme is...
Introducing SAI Platform
At Bairds, we understand that the pursuit of quality malt is dependent on sourcing the best available UK barley, which is why we are proud to source our barley only from growers who are members of UK farm assurances schemes recognised by SAI Platform’s global...
Graham Manson joins the bairds team as commercial sales manager
Bairds Malt is pleased to announce the appointment of Graham Manson as our new Commercial Sales Manager. Graham brings a wealth of experience in the distilling industry, with over 30 years’ experience working within the Scottish distilling industry, most recently as...
Scottish Whisky Awards 2020
This year marked the second ever Scottish Whisky Awards and an event we’re proud to have been a part of since it’s inception. It was a slightly different awards dinner from the usual evening that we have become accustomed as it took the form of a digital awards ceremony. Imagine Microsoft Teams meets MSN Messenger and this was the setup for the this year’s awards.
Mark Kinsman Retires from Bairds Malt
After over 32 years of service with Bairds, our Distilling Customer Manager, Mark Kinsman, will be retiring on 30th October 2020. Mark first worked for our business on a student placement starting in January 1981 and returned to the industry as a laboratory manager in...
The History of the Witham Roasthouse
The roasting traditions of Bairds Malt can be traced back to the 1800s, when the Baird brothers set up as maltsters in Glasgow before expanding their operations into the south of England. In 1925, Hugh Baird purchased the Witham malting site in Essex, in the heart of the ‘granary of England’ and a prime area for growing barley in the UK. Originally a floor maltings, it underwent an extensive refurbishment in the 1960’s. In operation now for over sixty years, Bairds’ Witham Roast House has been a leading supplier of roasted malt to the brewing industry worldwide. Although times have changed since its opening, the underlying roasting process and the company’s passion for creating a quality product remains the same.
Seed Early Evaluation Programme
Bairds and our sister company Scotgrain work together each year to hold an Early Evaluation Program (EEP) to trial new malting barley varieties. This evaluation is done at two assessment sites located in Carnoustie (early sown), and Inverness (later sown).
Our Scottish Ale Malt
We have been serving Scottish breweries since the early 1800s.
Back when we had a brewery on the banks of the Forth and Clyde Canal in Glasgow, we would also sell malt and hops to local breweries and distilleries. We were also one the first Maltsters in Scotland to produce roasted malts and the canal was used to send malt across to Guinness in Dublin and to brewers in the North of England.
An Introduction to our Peated Malts
Peated malt is a speciality product predominantly used by Distillers to produce peated whisky, although it is occasionally used by Brewers to produced beers with smoky undertones. For Baird’s, peated malt is solely produced at the Inverness plant in the Highland capital to service both the domestic and export markets, products range from lightly peated distilling malt though to heavily peated distilling malt. Malting is an art consisting of three very distinct stages, they are steeping, germination and kilning. Kilning is the point where peat reek(smoke) is introduced to the malt bed to impart the wonderful smoky characters to the grains.
