The history of maltings and brewing in local towns

Why Hertfordshire became malt country

The county sits on a band of chalky, free-draining soil that suits barley, and it is threaded with clear, cold rivers — the Lea, the Mimram, the Beane, the Rib, the Colne. Maltsters needed both: barley that would germinate evenly, and water clean enough to steep it in without tainting the grain. Add the pull of the London market, barely a day's cart journey from Ware or Hertford, and you have the reason market towns here grew up around malting floors rather than around any single trade.

By the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Ware, Hertford, Bishop's Stortford, Hitchin, Royston, Hoddesdon and St Albans all had clusters of maltings. Some were modest, run from a yard behind a brewhouse; others were industrial-scale, with brick kilns tall enough to be seen from the next parish. The trade gave the towns a rhythm — busy in autumn and winter, quieter in summer — and it left a built legacy that is still readable if you know what you are looking for.

Reading the maltings in the townscape

Maltings are long, tall and plain. Look for brick or timber-framed ranges with small, evenly spaced windows and steeply pitched roofs, often with a distinctive louvred or ventilated cowl on top where the kiln drew its air. The best surviving examples sit beside water or the old navigation, because moving grain and coal by horse and barge was far easier than by road.

• Ware — the highest concentration, with maltings pressed up against the river frontage and the towpath.
• Hertford — kiln roofs and warehouse ranges close to the confluence of the rivers, a short walk from the town centre.
• Bishop's Stortford — maltings tucked behind street frontages along the Stort, now mostly converted.
• Hitchin and Royston — malting yards that fed the coaching and brewing trades on the Great North Road.

Conversions can hide the evidence, but the proportions rarely lie. A long, narrow, high-ceilinged building with a brick base and a later roof is often an old floor maltings with a new life as flats or offices.

A maltster's working year

Floor malting was physical and seasonal. Barley was steeped in a cistern for two or three days until it held enough moisture to begin growing, then spread in a shallow layer on the malting floor. There it was left to couch and germinate, turned by hand with a wooden malt shovel two or three times a day to stop the rootlets matting together and the grain heating.

The maltster judged progress by feel, smell and the length of the acrospire — the tiny shoot inside the husk — aiming for it to reach roughly three-quarters of the grain's length. Too little, and the starch would not convert; too much, and the malt lost its sweetness. Once ready, the green malt went to the kiln to be dried and lightly coloured, often over coke or anthracite in later years, and finished with the warm, biscuity aroma that anyone who has stood near a working kiln never forgets.

The work was dusty, warm and heavy, and it ran through the colder months. Come spring, many maltsters turned to other trades or took on farm work, which is one reason malting and agriculture in these towns were never quite separate occupations.

Hops, wells and small brewhouses

Hertfordshire was never a great hop county — the deep clays of Kent and Worcestershire suited the plant better — but hop gardens existed in pockets, and small brewhouses bought in hops from the Weald and later from Herefordshire. Water came from wells and chalk springs, and its mineral content shaped the beer: harder water for pale ales, softer for milds and porters.

Most towns had at least one brewhouse serving its own tied houses, and the coaching inns along the Great North Road brewed on site as a matter of course. Brewing and malting were often under the same roof, or at least the same family, and the smell of a brewhouse on a cool morning was as ordinary as the smell of bread.

Walking the malt trail: routes and parks to pair with a pint

The good news for anyone exploring this history is that the walks run right past the buildings. Plan a half-day and take it slowly.

• Ware to Hertford along the Lea — the towpath passes maltings, wharves and locks; around four miles, flat, and easily halved by bus or train back.
• Hartham Common, Hertford — an open green beside the Beane, ideal for an hour's loop before or after the town-centre maltings.
• Southern Country Park, Bishop's Stortford — gentle paths and open grass, a short hop from the Stort-side maltings sites.
• Priory Park and the River Hiz, Hitchin — a compact walk linking the town's brewing and coaching past with proper benches and a playground.
• Therfield Heath, Royston — chalk downland above a town built on malting and coaching; steep in places, rewarding in every direction.

Finish at a town-centre pub and look up before you go in. Many were brewhouses first — check for a brew-house door, a stone-lined well head in the yard, or a cellar arch that was cut for casks rather than barrels of wine.

Practical notes for a day out

Wear something you do not mind getting muddy between November and March, as towpaths and river meadows hold water. Car parks in Ware, Hertford, Hitchin and Royston fill early on market days and at weekends, so arriving before ten makes life easier. Binoculars are worth packing for the Lea valley, where kingfishers and herons are common along the same stretch that once carried malt barges.

And if you want the history to land properly, do it in winter. The maltings were cold-season buildings, the walks are quieter, and a warm pub at the end of a chalk-stream towpath is exactly the reward the maltsters themselves would have understood.