This year BESTMALZ launched a new malt that pushes the limit of pale malts: BEST NP Ultra-Pale, a base malt with a colour of only 2.0–2.3 EBC. For comparison, common Pilsner malts sit around 3–4 EBC. The result is a very pale, almost colourless wort, and a beer in which hops and yeast can fully stand out.
What makes it different
The malt is made from special varieties of high-quality German malting barley and undergoes only a very small colour change during malting. BESTMALZ achieves this purely through process: precise control of temperature, humidity and airflow during kilning, and malting in smaller batches, with no chemical treatment. The malt therefore fully complies with the German purity law (Reinheitsgebot).
Sensorially it is clean and neutral: a gentle malty, grainy taste with no caramel or roasted notes. Exactly the kind of base that lets hop aroma and yeast character come through unmasked.
A fully capable base in the brewhouse
The low colour does not come at the expense of brewhouse performance. BEST NP Ultra-Pale has high diastatic power (min. 250 WK) and an extract of min. 80.5% in dry matter. It is an enzymatically strong malt that can carry the role of the only malt in the grist.
Usage
The recommended dosage is up to 100% of the grist. The producer recommends it especially for:
- Pilsner and pale premium lagers,
- Pale Ale,
- very pale and "light" beers,
- as a pale, enzymatically active base for combinations with speciality malts.
Where it fits in modern styles
An extremely pale base with a neutral profile is exactly what modern hop-forward styles are built on. West Coast Pilsner and Italian Pilsner combine the pale colour of a lager with pronounced hop aroma; this is where it shines. The same goes for Cold IPA, which relies on a pale, clean lager base under intense IPA hopping. And thanks to its high fermentability it also works in session and low-alcohol pale beers.
It serves well wherever you want full control over the colour of the beer: the speciality malts then define the final shade, not the base.