Featured Maltster: Pauls Malt

Bottling Date: Febuary 6, 2023

For this iteration of LIFE, we feature malts from Pauls Malts. This is a leaner and lighter-colored version LIFE, and it’s the only volume in this series (so far) that has no malts that crest above 100L. What does that mean in terms of flavor compared to some of the other versions? There’s less of a roasty edge– no chocolate, no acrid or ashy notes, no bruleed sugar and a lot less plum, date, and prune. Instead, there’s a lot more bread-like character in this: toasted sourdough, sticky bun, fruity toffee, and honey-dunked biscuits.
Pauls has some fascinating mid-range ‘malty malts’ like their Mild Ale and their Melanoidin that add some hard-to-pinpoint depth of maltiness that make this version distinct as well. It’s a hard concept to put into words, but malt depth is a little different than malt flavor. All of those bread and fruit-forward notes that we just described could be present in a beer that was still malt-thin. But what’s nice about using some of these 5-20 Lovibond kilned malts is the richness that they add to a beer, regardless of how dry the beer actually finishes.