1889 Feb | March 2018

what i’m working on
Phil Neumann
FROM LEFT Phil Neumann during barley harvest in Athena, Oregon, in 2016. Jason Parker, co-founder at Seattle’s Copperworks Distilling, brews “sweet wort” with 2016 Athena barley
malt, destined to become the “wash.”
What are the criteria you look for in
a Mainstem farm?
When I started Mainstem, there
was one specific campaign I wanted
to work toward—that is Sprouting
Streamflows, which is working with
irrigated growers to help them
reduce the amount of water they
use by switching crop types from
more consumptive crops to less
consumptive crops, and, in some
cases, even cutting irrigation out
entirely for the time that we’re under
contract with them. But that’s a
pretty experimental setup, and it’s
very dependent on a constantly
evolving state water regulation
system. … Definitely very much worth
pursuing but not a solid foundation
for a business.
That’s when I decided to focus
on dry-farmed malt to form the
foundation of the business. That’s
something I knew we could do really
well here. And then if we could do
Sprouting Streamflows on the side
that would have plenty of merit and
could be a pet project going forward.
Just looking at who can successfully
grow malting-quality grains year-toyear
without irrigation very much
limits where you’re looking in the
Northwest. We’re in the southernmost
end of the greater Palouse region
and that’s the best Northwest dryland
grain production country. We’re
playing around in the Willamette
Valley now with Goschie Farms. They
also grow really good dry-land grains.
Do the farms have to be Salmon
Safe as well?
Everyone we’re working with is
Salmon Safe. It’s a pretty low barrier
to entry and it sets a certain standard
for conservation. It’s a great place
to start with more conventionalleaning
farmers on becoming more
sustainable. I think we can use that
as a solid foundation to build a much
different agricultural system for these
much larger grain growers.
What I’m doing with Mainstem right
now isn’t cutting-edge sustainability,
but it does represent landscape-scale
change. Instead of focusing on doing
very small acreage very sustainably, I
would rather take the big picture and
move it in the right direction.
How is Mainstem grain turned
into malt?
Right now we have two different
malting facilities that we’re able to
work with to turn grain into malt.
One is LINC Foods in Spokane and
the other is Skagit Valley Malting in
Burlington. To date we’ve only used
LINC, and Skagit Valley will come into
play this year.
What’s the difference between craft
malt and industrial-scale malt?
It’s going to mean different things
to different people, but in general
I think the most important aspect
of it is there are these eye-to-eye
relationships between maltsters and
malt purchasers—brewers, distillers,
bakers. For the most part, it’s all small
businesses. You have the opportunity
for craft brewers to work with a
similarly scaled maltster. There’s a
lot of things that can happen when
that happens—small batches, more
potential to experiment with different
grain varieties, different malt profiles,
different sources. There’s just huge
experimentation potential. And since
it’s small batch, there’s the ability to
produce straight for order, so the
fresh malt dynamic is pretty new.
FEBRUARY | MARCH 2018 1889 WASHINGTON’S MAGAZINE 41