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Partnering with BestMalz

Get to know BestMalz, who they are, what they represent, their history and about our partnership.  Read our written questionnaire or listen into our #BrewCraic with Dr. Axel Göhler.

During the world economic crisis in the late 1920, the malt house ran into financial problems and breweries took over the shares of the small malt house. Max Göhler, grown up in a tradition of many generations of brewing activities and son of the Technical Director of a Berlin based brewery, decided to take over these shares. In the following years, the entrepreneur invested heavily in the malt house and grew it to one of the most important manufacturers of malt for breweries in Germany.

The son of the founder, Eberhard Göhler, decided to take-over a second malting facility in Wallertheim, adjacent to Mainz. It increased the production capacity from 55,000 tons to around 70,000 tons. While the headquarters of Palatia Malz GmbH have always been located in romantic Heidelberg on the Neckar river, this second malt house gave access to important shipping facilities and other logistics facilities located at Rhine River.

In 2001, Palatia Malz together with mid-sized partners from the German malting industry founded BESTMALZ AG in order to start exporting German high quality malt. The 3rd generation of the Göhler family pushed international sales activities further and further. Also, specialty malt production was started in 2007 and a sizable bagging and roasting unit was set-up at the Wallertheim malt house facility. In the ten years following this milestone investment BESTMALZ became one of the leading German malt brands fulfilling all the malting needs of small, medium sized and large breweries at home and abroad.

With the world wide break-through of craft beer BESTMALZ became synonymous for top quality brewing barley malt and wheat in 25kgs bags, 50 kgs bags, in totes and as bulk. With a team of around 100 employees Palatia Malz GmbH managed to grow from a small local family business into a world leading brand which is still run and owned by the same family who started the business many years ago.

Great team work is necessary for malting and distributing BEST malts into the whole world. The team is located at three facilities. In Kreimbach near Kaiserslautern where our company was founded in 1899, we focus on the malt production. In Wallertheim near Mainz we produce also malt and put the emphasis on the logistics. From the headquarter in Heidelberg we coordinating the purchasing of barley, order processing, sales and marketing.

“Our global distribution partners are the lifeline of our business. We abide by the claim that ‘all business is local’, and are therefore excited to have Loughran Brewing Stores as our trusted network partner in one of our key future growth markets.” Dr. Axel Göhler

The main benefit for Irish brewers is the reliable delivery of BEST quality malt from Germany for brewing (not only) typical German beer styles.

We acted very prospective and handed first instructions with preventive measures to our staff with the beginning of March. From April to the mid of June the majority of employees worked in home office if possible. For reasons of a decline in orders we reduced working time. In the summer month the situation seemed to recover and we got step by step back to a normal daily work routine. Precautions still have a high priority.

Our base malts are always in demand. Apart from that, many brewers appreciate our BEST Red X® craft malt that has become synonymous with red-tinted beers. It can make 100% of the grain bill. Other popular specialty malts are BEST Caramel® malts – we have seven varieties in our range.

Palatia Malz has built a powerful quality management team solely responsible for ensuring top quality results. The two malt houses do have an integrated QM approach. Every 50th bag is controlled by hand (mind that, if you ever get a bag with a small card “Quality checked by: name of our employee).

The aim to create continuously BEST malt qualities. A well-balanced combination of traditional crafts and innovations.

A customer should choose BESTMALZ for brewing amazing quality and of course the best beer.

In times of Corona there are plenty of hopes and expectations…

First of all we hope that the economy will recover and become flourishing again.

BESTMALZ will stick to the traditional handcraft malting. Nevertheless, we are working on innovative ideas to improve our business and that of our partners: #maltitup!