29 Our Advertisers Appreciate Your Business Better Farming | May/June 2024 advocates for new barley varieties more suited to malting and craft brewing. This also helps the family direct conversations about which varieties they should be using on their own farm, with the knowledge that they will be used for malting after harvest. The Hamills seek to keep improving their farm and use that expertise to improve their products. “One thing we focus on is creating specialty malt which adds aroma and flavour to beer and spirits. We had the first malt roaster in Canada. Different times and temperatures can make the malt taste like breakfast cereal, baking, nuts, or chocolate,” says Matt. “We are always going to keep pushing and doing experiments to find out what works best.” What are you most proud of in your operation? Connecting the whole barley value chain and helping the story of the farm be more meaningful to the end user – whether they are a beer drinker or whisky sipper. Some other things we are proud of is seeing the businesses that use our products receiving awards. We work closely with Blindman Brewing in Lacombe, and they’ve picked up a pretty crazy number of awards recently. They won Brewery of the Year at the 2023 Canadian Brewers Choice Awards, and Best in Show for some beers that use our ingredients. Some of the whisky distilleries that use our products have also picked up awards. The Fort Distillery in Fort Saskatchewan and Bridgeland Distillery picked up gold metals for a few products with our ingredients in single malt and single blend bourbon. Watching awards ceremonies is fun because we get to cheer for a lot of people and not just ourselves, and we celebrate a lot of cool stuff with our friends. Do you have a goal for your farm? Right now, there’s lots of talk of succes- sion planning. We are working on what the future looks like on the farm UP CLOSE Toll free in SK: 1.877.645.7275 usedoilrecyclingsk.com By recycling used oil, filters, antifreeze, their plastic containers and DEF containers, you help keep Saskatchewan's water, land and air clean and safe. With 37 EcoCentres, nearly 100 drop-off points and over 30 registered collectors province-wide, we have one of the best recycling networks in the country, let's use it! Making every drop count Recovering. Recycling. Reusing The farm and malthouse are a family effort. David Dinan, Hot Shoe Studio photo
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