Your cart is currently empty!
2 row / Spring / 11% Protein
Excelsior Gold was developed by Cornell University to combat challenges farmers face when growing spring malting barley – disease and pre-sprout susceptibility – while maintaining desirable malt/ing characteristics. Excelsior Gold is a spring malting barley – planted in April and harvested in late July. For 2021, DGFB planted 2 acres of Excelsior Gold for evaluation trials. If the crop is viable it will be sent to the malt house and returned for use in our brewery!
Come back for a taste of Excelsior Gold in our upcoming Spirit Pale Ale. Special release date: Labor Day Weekend
Cornell University released Excelsior Gold in December 2020, ahead of the 2021 planting season. As a spring malting barley, Excelsior Gold will have higher protein than its winter stepsister and easier to malt. Some think that spring malting barley is more desirable in the brewhouse.
However, spring varieties are more difficult to grow as they are susceptible to fungal diseases and pre-sprouting – a term used for when barley begins to malt in the field rendering it useless in the malthouse. As a result, spring varieties have created significant crop losses across New York State, which have presented challenges when meeting the 2012 Farm Brewing Law ingredient standards.
Cornell University bred Excelsior Gold to be disease and pre-sprout resistant so that brewers could reliably contract for New York grown malt. Farmers have a higher probability of a successful crop that yields higher overall profitability than feed grade barley. This test plot of Excelsior Gold will give us the information we need, from ground-to-glass, to evaluate the commercial viability as a spring malting barley option for Dancing Grain Farm Brewery!
Be the first to hear about new brews, events, and more!