After nearly a decade of supplying Bay Area brewers with a local alternative to industrial malt, the pioneering Admiral Maltings will close both its Alameda production facility and taproom next month.
Admiral Maltings became the state’s first craft malting facility when it opened out of the former Alameda Naval Air Station in 2017. The company found a hungry customer base in California craft breweries, who had previously resorted to the same industrially produced malt — or germinated grain — to brew their beers. But monetizing that project has grown difficult, Admiral Maltings wrote in a statement on social media Tuesday. Their announcement comes amid a sharp downturn in the craft beer industry, as local breweries have merged, filed for bankruptcy or shut down in recent years.
“Despite our best efforts, we couldn’t make and sell malt economically,” the statement reads. “Although we have reached out to many professional colleagues and potential partners over the last couple of years in an effort to carry Admiral Maltings into the future, we no longer possess the resources to push forward.”…