Friday, December 26, 2008

Mexican barley at last!

Si! Viva La Cebada en Mexico!
Finally. It seems like it should have been an easy task to find a supplier of malted barley in Mexico, but it was quite difficult. I did extensive internet searches using English and Spanish words and phrases like malt and malto, barley and cebada, malta de cebada, lúpulo para elaborar la cerveza with no results until the other day. I was at the point of not caring if I found malt in Mexico or not when I just happened to stumbled upon http://www.maltayderivados.com/
The website indicated an entire inventory of brewing related materials and equipment but lacked details like individual items and costs. They did list a phone number and address (estamos en la ciudad de pachuca hidalgoparque industrial canacintra av. b lote 14 a). I became very exited with the possibility of finding a source of malt, and rushed out to purchase a phone card to make the long distance call to their office. Returning home I scribbled out pertinent questions on a note pad. Do you have malted barley? Can I buy it locally? How much? Etc. Because my Spanish is so limited I solicited Susan to call and habla espanol with whoever answered the call. I waited for Susan to finish talking and hang up before insisting on every detail of the conversation. Turns out that Maltayderivados is located outside of Mexico City but is willing to ship anything I want to San Miguel. They have a 50 kilo minimum order for malted barley and the cost per 25 kilo is 350 pesos ($35 us). They also have all of the specialty grains and Cascade hops. In addition to materials, they sell brewing equipment. The salesman 'Luis'
said that he would follow up with an e-mail giving more details on the costs of grain.
I'm very excited to finally know for sure that I can get the materials that I need for brewing here. I will plan on developing my contact with 'Luis' over the remainder of my time here this year.
In the mean time I discovered a source for malt extract www.complementosalimenticios.com/
on the web but have yet to make contact with them. I will purchase another phone card soon and follow up with them.
And if all this good news wasn't enough, I also came across a homebrew supply place in Mexico City www.homebrewingmexico.com/ that appears to have the basics albeit a limited inventory.
In my future trips to Mexico I may be able to pack my bags without the need to save half the space for brewing ingredients!

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Mark,
I continued the quest for a Mexico supplier since our last talk in Jan. Found a guy that STOCKS a full selection of grain, malt extract, Frementus yeasts and pellet hops!! He speaks english as well. Seems to be knowlegable! He just sent me his product list. If you are still intrested, I can forward it to you. I saw your last post re; malting your own!! Sounds like fun!
Best regards, Cliff cliff@backstreetbrewpub.com

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