Embedded Files
THE POST-REPEAL US MALTSTER-BREWERS
A 1937 issue of The American Brewer magazine stated that there were only 12 brewery-owned malthouses in the US in that early post-Repeal era, most of which were in Wisconsin where, according to state records in 1935, there were 8 "maltster-brewers".
A 1933 US census count of independently-owned malt houses found there were 30. In 1935 and 1937, the census bureau included both brewery-owned and independent houses and found, respectively, 54 and 57 malt houses operating.
The malt "Made by malt houses for consumption in breweries under same owner" was approximately 9-10% of the total in 1933-1935, jumping to 12.5% in 1937.
In 1937, Wisconsin led the nation in malt houses with 22, accounting for about 45% of the US production, followed by Minnesota [9], California [6], Illinois [5], New York [4] and 1 each in Iowa, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, Montana and New Jersey.
As the years progressed, the number would change as some brewers stopped malting or went out of business while others bought existing malt plants, or breweries with malthouses, etc.
Most brewery-owned malt houses were attached or on the grounds of their main breweries while others were off-site.
Many of the ads pictured or quoted below featured claims of being "...one of the few..." malting-brewers or similar wording.
In no particular state order, some of the post-Repeal brewer-maltsters:
NEW YORK
Genesee Brewing Co. - Sodus Point Malt House
^ ORIGINAL 1938 ANNOUNCEMENT
DOUBLE CLICK ON AD FOR FULL SIZE VIEW
In 1936, Genesee purchased the former Parsons malt house on Lake Ontario, 40 miles east of Rochester, in Sodus Point, NY. The malt house had gone out of business in 1900 and had been a cold storage facility for most of the time after that. Genesee built 8 new silos and tore down the old elevators but continued to use the "English floor system of malting", advertising they made the only floor malt in the US and operated the only brewery-owned malt house in the East. Genesee would upgrade the facility in 1940 at which time floor malting was discontinued. By 1969, the malt house was producing more than a million bushels of malta year.
Genesee's Fred Koch Malting
Buffalo, NY
In 1986, Genesee announced they were closing the 1.4 million bushel/year Sodus Point Malt Plant and buying the American Malting Co., of Buffalo, NY (formerly operated by Perot and, later, Carling see below) then currently owned by T.M. Leasing Co., Inc., claiming that Sodus Point did not have the needed capacity.
Genesee would run it under their subsidiary Fred Koch Brewing Co.* name. The Buffalo plant was expected to malt up to 3 million bushels of barley a year for the Rochester brewery. At the time in the early 1980s, Genesee had reached its peak barrelage of over 3m bbl/yr and was the #7 brewery in the nation - behind only the then national Big Six of Anheuser-Busch, Miller, Stroh, Heileman, Coors and Pabst.
* Genesee had purchased the Koch Brewing Co., of Dunkirk, NY in 1984, soon after closing the brewery but continuing to brew and market Koch's Anniversary Beer and, for a short time, Koch's Black Horse Ale.
Schaefer / Stroh's - Geo. Meyer Malt Co.
Buffalo, NY
"Malt has often been called the "soul" of beer. It is the material which has the greatest
influence on the quality of the final product. The maltsters of today know this, and by
means of cooperative evaluation with the brewer, provide, today, the finest malt available.
And, with our own malting facilities, we, at Schaefer, can be absolutely certain of achieving
the highest quality malt."
---from THE STORY OF QUALITY - ALL ABOUT SCHAEFER BEER [1974]
When Stroh bought Schaefer in 1981, they continued to operate the malting operation in Buffalo until 1984 when they took ownership of the Hamm's brewery & malt house in trade with Pabst for it's ex-Schlitz Tampa brewery. (See Hamm's below)
Stroh claimed there was excess capacity in the US malting industry and since the Buffalo plant originally used Canadian barley from Ontario, which was no longer available, it was closed. At the time it had a capacity of 2.5 million bushels of malt and employed 25 people.
Schaefer announced they would convert the facility to the "Frauenheim process - a malting method in which all stages of malting are place in once vertical tower. Barley is 'steeped' or soaked at the top and then flows by gravity from one to another of six germinating compartments."
---BUFFALO COURIER-EXPRESS, December 15, 1961
^REPEAL ERA AD
In 1961, the F. & M. Schaefer Brewing Company purchased the George J. Meyers Malt & Grain Corp., at the time a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Frauenheim Corporation.
Schaefer had previously had a malt house as part of its Park Ave brewery in New York City before opening a new, modern brewery on Kent Avenue in Brooklyn in the years immediately before WWI and Prohibition.
The Meyer Buffalo malting facility included two malt plants, two elevators, offices and labs in Buffalo, with an annual capacity of 2.2 million bushels.
Carling Brewing Co. [sub. of Canadian Breweries]
Buffalo, NY
In 1962, the famous Perot Malting Co., headquartered in Philadelphia and known as the oldest firm in the US, sold their Buffalo, NY facility to Canadian Breweries Ltd. (later known as Carling-O'Keefe). Pre-Prohibition photo of Perot's new Buffalo malt house. >
CB formed a subsidiary called the "American Malting Co." as a subsidiary to it's Candian based Dominion Malting Co., Ltd - and announced that the Buffalo malt house would primarily supply it's US subsidiary, Carling Brewing Co. of Cleveland, OH with malt. At the time, Carling in the US was the 4th largest brewing company, operating seven breweries from coast to coast and brewing over 5 million barrels of Carling Black Label Beer and Red Cap Ale as well as regional brands like Stag & Heidelberg a year.
The malt house would have several subsequent owners before being sold to Genesee in 1986 (above).
MINNESOTA
Gluek Brewing Co.
Minneapolis
Gluek's brewery and malt house had remained opened during Prohibition and thus they could make this claim in a 1934 ad less than a year after Repeal. Other Minnesota brewers like (below) Duluth, Hamm and St. Cloud would soon join them as maltster-brewers.
Duluth Brewing & Malting Co.
Hamm Brewing Co., St. Paul Malting Plant
In the early 1960s, the Duluth firm and it's labels would be purchased by G. Heileman Brewing Co. After closing the brewery, Heileman continued to operate the malt house for several more years.
Subsequent owners of the brewery - Olympia, Pabst and Stroh - continued to operate the malt house through the 1970s - 1990s. Stroh closed the former Hamm's brewery in 1997 but continued to operate the malting facility briefly after the shutdown.
By the mid-70s, Hamm's malted 3 million bushels of barley a year - 2,500 bushels a day in a 30-day malting process.
The Theo. Hamm Brewing Co. announced they were adding a malting plant to their brewery complex in St. Paul, MN in 1935. The 80' malt plant would feature an 190' elevator and grain tanks over slightly over 100'.
BARLEY FLOWS INTO THE ELEVATOR...........THEN TO THE MALT HOUSE.................WHERE IT IS STEEPED IN WELL WATER.
-- Photos and captions from HAMM'S BEER - BREWED IN THE FAMILY TRADITION promo book, circa 1970s
St. Cloud Brewing Co.
St. Cloud, MN
WISCONSIN
Schlitz Malt House
Milwaukee
The Schlitz malt house had a capacity of 1.5 million bushels coming out of Prohibition. In 1934, they announced an expansion program that would mean the building of a new malthouse which would add another 1 million bushels of malting capacity.
Schlitz had operated a malt house in Houghton, Michigan before Prohibition and re-opened it in 1928.
"The Schlitz brewery makes its own malt. Malt is made from barley and from the standpoint of quality is the principal ingredient in beer. About one bushel of malt goes into each barrel of beer. The character and quality of the malt influences the beer in the following particulars: aroma, taste, foam, stability.
"The Schlitz brewery makes its own malt. Malt is made from barley and from the standpoint of quality is the principal ingredient in beer. About one bushel of malt goes into each barrel of beer. The character and quality of the malt influences the beer in the following particulars: aroma, taste, foam, stability.
"There are less than one-half dozen breweries in this country which make their own malt, as far as is known by the Schlitz Brewery. The balance by malt from commercial maltsters, but Schlitz Brewery feels that there is an advantage in controlling the malting process and directing it specifically toward the brewing of Schlitz Beer." ---June, 1952
"There are less than one-half dozen breweries in this country which make their own malt, as far as is known by the Schlitz Brewery. The balance by malt from commercial maltsters, but Schlitz Brewery feels that there is an advantage in controlling the malting process and directing it specifically toward the brewing of Schlitz Beer." ---June, 1952
[RIGHT] "STEEPING TANKS, WHERE BARLEY KERNELS GERMINATE AND SPROUT UNDER MOISTURE AND HEAT. SPROUTS ARE REMOVED AND THE REMAINING BARLEY STARCHES BECOME THE MELLOW FLAVORED MALT."
Unknown artist's rendering of a Schlitz Malt House scene, from 1972's ON PREMISE, The magazine for taverns and restaurants published by The Jos. Schlitz Brewing Co.
Walter Brothers Brewing Co.
Menasha, WI
Miller Brewing Co's. Waterloo Malting Co.
Waterloo, WI
The Miller Brewing Co. purchased the Waterloo Malting Co. in the early 1970s. Waterloo traced its history back to 1902, formed by locals in partnership with the Rice Malt and Grain Co. of Chicago, reopening after Repeal. Miller, citing excess capacity in the malting industry, closed the 17 employee facility in 1994 claiming they were unable to find a buyer.
In 1995, Breiss Malting purchased the plant and continues to operate it today.
Walter Brewing Co.
Eau Claire, WI
"The large malt house at the Walter Brewing company is being re-conditioned and will be ready for the start of operations in about a week…Martin Walter, in charge of the plant here, said that when the malt house is in operation the Eau Claire brewery will be one of the few in the state making its own malt… With the opening of the malt house an initial order of 60,000 bushels of barley to be purchased from Wisconsin farmers will be necessary."
"Walter Bros. Brewing Company, Menasha, Wis., is remodeling its plant and installing new equipment, at a cost of $15,000. Plans have also been announced for the addition of a malting plant with a capacity of 500,000 bushels."
--- AMERICAN BREWER, February, 1935
--- Eau Claire Leader, Oct 1, 1933
G. Heileman Brewing Co. (Gund Malt House)
La Crosse, WI
In 1939, Heileman took over the operations of the malt house of its pre-Prohibition neighboring rival brewer, John Gund Brewing Co., which had closed at Prohibition.
Below right - a small mention of their malting operation from the local paper's article on the Gund brewery buildings. (Some sources suggest that the original post-Repeal operator of the Gund malt house was the Chilton Malting Co., starting in 1938).
The long-time "maltmaster" at the G. Heileman malting facility would later be John Sleik, Jr.
[BELOW] A late 1970s photo of the building.
[ABOVE] Pabst's Milwaukee Malt House in the early 1900s and [TOP] as it looks today.
"The Pabst malt house is the largest malt house owned by any brewery in the United States*, and it is here that the pick of the barley crop is brought by the farmers to make the malt for Pabst Beer.
"The annual consumption of barley by Pabst is more than 2,750,000 bushels or 93,500,000 pounds, all of which goes into the production of Pabst beer.
"In the malt house (the barley) drops from floor to under the watchful eyes of experts, and then it (goes) to the tremendous tanks where the barley is treated further before going to the mills for grinding. By carefully picking choice crops of barley and watching closely all the steps of the malting process, Pabst is able to produce the exact type of malt needed to assure perfect flavor and taste in their brews. They are not dependent upon commercially made malt which might vary in quality from time to time."
--- September, 1937
* 1948's The Pabst Brewing Company: The History of an American Business by Thomas A Cochran noted that it was still the largest brewery-owned malt house at that time, and had been since 1901.
Jacob Leinenkugel Brewing Co.
Chippewa Falls
"...(T)he company has a completely equipped malt house for the manufacture and sale of malt which will provide a cash market for barley raised by the farmers of the surrounding territory."
--- Eau Claire Leader, April 4, 1933
Marshfield Brewing Co.
Marshfield
"New Malting Equipment - At an expense of many thousands of dollars, automatic equipment has been installed to provide a capacity for malting 80,000 bushels of barley in a single year. This capacity exceeds the present needs of the brewery. The brewery makes a practice of buying locally as much suitable barley as possible for its own use.
Formerly, the process of floor malting was relied upson, but the establishment of the new mechanical devices makes the malting more uniform and eliminates many of the problems and labor formerly connected to the process."
--- Marshfield News-Herald April 7, 1938
Pabst Malt House
Milwaukee
Mathie-Ruder Brewing Co.
Wausau
"The Mathie-Ruder Brewing company is planning to improve the former Mathie Brewing company’s malt house with elevator connections with the malt house in its present brewery plant in preparations for the purchase of an additional 50,000 bushes of malt barley during the fall and winter…The Mathie-Ruder Brewing company is one of the few breweries in this part of the state to manufacture its own malt."
--- WAUSAU DAILY HERALD, May 22, 1935
MISSOURI
Anheuser-Busch - Agricultural Division
St. Louis, MO (circa 1900 - 1973)
AB's ST LOUIS MALTING DRUMS, 1940 >>>
[LEFT] St. Louis malt house, circa 1960
TOP- WASHING AND STEEPING TANKS
CENTER - GERMINATING DRUMS
BOTTOM - DRYING KILNS
"The Anheuser-Busch brewing process is so exacting that nothing is left to chance. All malting is done in the huge malt houses of the big St. Louis plant. No malted barley or partially processed material from outside sources go into our beers."
"The Anheuser-Busch brewing process is so exacting that nothing is left to chance. All malting is done in the huge malt houses of the big St. Louis plant. No malted barley or partially processed material from outside sources go into our beers."
--- Budweiser ad
December, ©1933
SOLD
Manitowoc, WI
(formerly Rahr Malting Co.,
AB purchased 1962
sold to Ceres in 2011
sold to Breiss in 2014)
"The (St. Louis) malt house … produced approximately nine per cent of the company’s annual malt requirements… August A. Busch, Jr… indicated the inefficiency of the operation forced a decision to close it down."
--- AP wire service story, August 1973
In the mid-1980s, AB's Moorhead and Manitowoc malting plants supplied only an estimated 1/3 of the brewer's malt requirements. At the time AB's barrelage was in the 60 million bbl range.
CURRENT MALT HOUSES
Moorhead, MN (opened ~1977)
8 million bushels/year capacity
Idaho Falls, Idaho (opened 1991)
16 million bushels/year capacity
COLORADO
Coors Malting
--- COORS: A ROCKY MOUNTAIN LEGEND [1998]
"In 1937, after receiving a few barley seeds from a supplier in Moravia, Czechoslovakia. Coors switched to a new strain of barley it dubbed "Moravian." Since then, the company's geneticists at its barley gene bank in Burley, Idaho, have continually refined the strain to improve plant characteristics and the taste of Coors beer."
"This big industry grew from a small packet of seed. In 1937, a few seeds accompanied a shipment of premium malt from the province of Morovia in Czechoslovakia. These few kernels were planted in a garden at Golden. The results were very gratifying. The seed responded so well to Golden’s climate that it was further increased by John Uhrleh, a farmer near Johnstown. The strain he grew showed malting properties far beyond that of any barley used at the Coors plant.
By 1944, enough of a crop had been grown for Adolph Coors Company of Golden to use in a small malting trial. The results again were so promising that seed was immediately increased and certified by Colorado A&M. The new variety barely was named Moravian in 1946, after its origin the province of Moravia. In that year 700 acres were sewn in Northern Colorado. Two years later 1600 acres were sewn in the San Luis Valley.
The new barley was 2-row with a white kernel and a very thin hull. It responded to Colorado’s cool nights and long ripening period to produce a short plump and mellow kernel. It was found to have a yield capacity well over 100 bushels per acre far beyond expectation.
Moravian responded so well to Colorado’s elevation and it fit into the agricultural economical picture so nicely that it is now an important crop. Coors buys it all at a premium price.
The new elevator in Golden is a part of the over-all, long-time expansion program. A new malt house is to be constructed and upon completion, the barley acreage must be doubled to supply the 2,000 bushels required daily."
from MALT BARLEY BECOMES MORE IMPORTANT CROP Greeley Daily Tribune, Greeley, Colorado, Oct 22, 1953
_______
"In the company's earliest days, local farmers were contracted to grow barley that was malted right at the brewery, unlike other breweries that had outside suppliers malt barley for them. Coors remains the only major brewer that malts all its own barley.
Coors' Golden CO malting facility, from their video - Behind the Brewing: Coors Maltsters
CALIFORNIA
Acme *
While 1930s ads from the Acme Brewing Co. aka California Brewing Association featured this comment and drawing of their original malt house in San Francisco, it is unclear whether either of the post-Repeal Acme breweries did their own malting.
Long time Northern California brewmaster Frank Ruhstaller re-opened Sacramento's Buffalo Brewing Co. months after first announcing it, in April 1934. Ruhstaller had operated his Ruhstaller Brewing Co. (aka Sacramento Brewing Co.) in Sacramento up until Prohibition. As noted in the two small articles about Buffalo's malthouse (which is clearly pictured as part of the brewery complex in the illustration being used during the period) in the local paper's multiple page coverage, pre-Prohibition the company supplied malt for both itself and Ruhstaller. Ruhstaller would retire in 1939, a year after noting that the malthouse was purchasing 70-80,000 sacks of California-grown barley a year.
Buffalo would shutdown in 1942, selling its Buffalo and Ruhstaller Gilt Edge brands to Grace Bros. [BELOW] in nearby Santa Rosa.
Grace Bros.
(North Bay Malting Co. & Sonoma Malt & Grain Co.)
Santa Rosa, CA
In 1947, as the Sonoma Grain & Malt Co., the company sent 4 million pounds of malt to an unnamed brewery(ies) in Hawaii.
In the immediate post-WWII period, the Grace Bros.-owned malt house, located behind the brewery on 2nd and Wilson, exported malt to breweries in Belgium (1.7 million pounds), Brazil, Portugal, Guatemala and Manila, as well as using it for its own "Happy Hops" G.B. Beer.
As noted above from a 1945 ad, Grace Bros also grew their own hops on a 90 acre ranch in the Russian River region of northern California. The company also grew its own rice and barley in nearby Colusa County.
(LEFT) Grace Bros. brewmaster, L. H. "Len" Burton and his assistant poss in their malthouse for a newspaper photographer in 1950.
Rainier Brewing Co.
(San Francisco and Los Angeles)
In 1934, the Rainier Brewing Co. announced they would build a $400,000 malt house in San Francisco, at the corner of Bryant and Alamada Streets, of "....reinforced concrete elevator…together with the necessary steeping, malting and drying buildings and their equipment, which will be the most modern on the market."
“This will assure exact uniformity of flavor and highest quality. We will use Pacific coast barley exclusively, which is reputed to be the finest brewing barley in the world.”
--- Louis Hemrich, Rainier president, 1934
"The barley (is) received direct from the cars at the malt house and after cleaning, (is) put thru the manufacturing process. Forty tons of barley per day are used and it takes nine days to manufacture malt. The output of the finished product is 34 tons per day. There are 18 processing drums and three are filled with raw material and three are emptied of the finished malt each day. The huge steel drums in which the processing takes place, move so slowly that they make but one revolution per hour. The plant in this department never stops. It works 24 hours per day and every day in the week. The malt goes into the vacuum tanks, and there is dried and
is blown into the storage tanks…"
--- DOWN WHERE THE RAINIER FLOWS, Art S. Newburgh
The Petaluma Argus-Courier, June 21, 1934
Red Bluff Brewing Co. / United States Brewing Co.
Pacific Brewing & Malting Co. (later Falstaff)
San Jose, CA
Red Bluff
The short-lived Red Bluff Brewing Co. reportedly was considering erecting its own malt house, according to the August 1938 issue of The American Brewer.
ALBERT SCHWILL & CO. Malt house - 1933
In 1961, The Falstaff Brewing Corp. (at the time the #3 brewer in the US with a barrelage of 4.9 million in 1960) purchased the malting facilities of Albert Schwill & Co. of South Chicago, “…to assure a constant and premium quality source of brewing’s prime ingredient, malted barley”.
ILLINOIS
Falstaff Brewing Corp.'s Plant #11 - Malting Division
Chicago
(formerly Albert Schwill & Co.)
In the mid-70s, the Falstaff plant was one of three malt houses left in Chicago. The facility was closed by the late 1970s, likely due to cost cutting implemented under Falstaff's new ownership, the S&P Corp., controlled by Paul Kalmanovitz.
Photos from the late 1980s of the abandoned Falstaff malt house (remnants of Falstaff's "Shield" logo can be seen in center pic) before being razed in the following decade, after a notorious accidental death in 1990.
The Schwill plant, at 103rd Street and South Indianapolis Avenue, had a capacity of 4 million bushels a year.
Beer begins with barley. From premium barley we create our own malt. In our Chicago malt plant's "weather factory" we provide year-round springlike weather to assure perfectly germinated barley. Once kilned and mellowed to rigid specifications, the barley moves to the brewery. Here it is cleaned, milled and precisely weighed.
--- 1960s promotional booklet, Brewed in Drinkability
FALSTAFF BREWING CORP. - CORPORATE TRAINING DEPT
WASHINGTON
Seattle Brewing & Malting Co. (Sick's, later Rainier) *
Seattle Brewing and Malting Co., part of the US-Canadian chain of breweries owned by the Sick family (The House of Lethbridge) took its name from a pre-Prohibition company but apparently it did no malting in Seattle after Repeal. Sick operated the Great Falls Breweries, Inc of Montana, and the malt house there supplied Sick breweries with malt.
Emil Sick also was one of the brewery-owners who invested in the Great Western Malt Co. in Spokane [BELOW].
Spokane Brewing & Malting Co.
In the Spring of 1934, Theodore Galland, president and general manager of the
Spokane Brewing & Malting Company announced plans to build a new 500,000 bushel malt house, to supply Pacific Northwest brewers.
Bohemian Breweries
Spokane & Boise
Great Western Malting Co.
BLITZ-WEINHARD - STAR - OLYMPIA - SEATTLE BREWING & MALTING
Vancouver
In 1960, Great Western merged with the California Malting Co. of Los Angeles.
In 1944, Rahr Malting Co. of Manitowoc, WI, with additional malthouses in Minneapolis and Shakopee, WI bought a "substantial portion" of Great Western.
Founded in 1935, the Great Western Malting Co. was formed by a consortium of Washington and Oregon brewery executives, including Arnold Blitz (Blitz-Weinhard), Phil Polsky (Star Brewing of Vancover), Peter Schmidt (Olympia Brewing) and Emil Sick (Seattle Brewing & Malting/Rainier). Arnold Blitz served as the new malting corporation's first president.
When opened in June of that year, it had eighteen 600 bushel drums and a capacity to steep 1,800 bushels a day.
SOUTH DAKOTA
F. W. Schwenk Brewing Co. *
Yankton, SD
UTAH
Becker Brewing & Malting Co.
Ogden, Utah
"Becker’s Best Pale Beer – Perfect artesian water, choicest hops and yeast, -Intermountain selected White Club barley, malted in our Pneumatic Drum System Malt House."
---1934 ad
Weidemann was one of the few post-Repeal breweries which was also a licensed distillery.
--- 1949 ad
KENTUCKY
Weidemann Brewing Co.
Newport
In June 1933 the Cincinnati Enquirer reported the purchase and reopening of the Weidemann brewery, which included “...reconditioning the malt house which has a grain elevator and storage capacity for 150,000 bushels of barley and the company will manufacture its own malt.”
"Workmen have been busily engaged in getting the old George Wiedemann brewery, Newport, Kentucky… in shape for the production of 3.2 per cent beer…
The Fleischmann Malting Company will furnish brewing malt. The Brewery will manufacture about half of its annual 800,000 bushel of malt used."
--- AMERICAN BREWER, September 1933
IOWA
Zoller (Blackhawk) Brewing Co./Uchtorff Brewing Co. *
Davenport
MONTANA
Kalispell Malting & Brewing Co.
Kalispell
Great Falls Breweries, Inc.
Great Falls
Great Falls Breweries (combining the pre-Prohibition Montana Brewing Co. and the American Brewing Co.) were two of a number of US breweries Canadian brewer Emil Sick would operate in the northwestern US. Best known as the owner of the Seattle Brewing & Malting Co., brewer of Rainier Beer and Ale.
As noted in the below article, Sick also owned the Missoula Brewing Co. in Montana as well as Sick's Century Brewery (Seattle) and Sick's Spokane Brewery, as well as the "House of Lethbridge" brewing group in Canada. Sick was also an investor in the Great Western Malting Co. of Spokane.
"(The) Great Falls Brewery is the only brewery in the northwest west of the Twin Cities with its own malting operation."
---The Daily Inter Lake,
Kalispell, Montana
May 3, 1940
The former Montana Brewery was converted to the malt plant, with the ex-American facility used as a brewery. By mid-1934 the company reported a rate of malting 300 bushels a day.
In 1949, Sick sold the Great Falls brewery and malt house to "local interests", who sold out to Portland's Blitz-Weinhard Brewing Co. in 1966. B-W apparently closed the malt plant at that time, and shut the brewery down two years later.
"Located on Central avenue west, the Great Falls Breweries, Inc., ... malt plant has been operated since 1933 for conversion of barley into malt. It is the only malt house between Minneapolis and the Pacific coast. Montana-grown barley is used almost exclusively in its operation."
--- Great Falls Tribune
Great Falls, Montana
August 19, 1964
* Highlighted breweries' malt houses are unconfirmed. In some cases, the brewery may have done its own malting in the pre-Prohibition era but discontinued it, yet the buildings on site were still referred to as the "malt house", etc.
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