Murphy & Rude and Carolina Malt House merge to expand malt supply

Murphy & Rude Malting Co. and Carolina Malt House merged operations in a June 22 announcement, combining Murphy & Rude’s specialty malts, roasting equipment, and roasting know-how with Carolina Malt House’s base malt production and high-kiln machinery. The merger creates a single regional supplier for the Mid-Atlantic and Southern craft-beverage markets.

The biggest operational change is happening in Cleveland, North Carolina, where Murphy & Rude’s roasting equipment will be relocated and all Murphy & Rude malts will now be manufactured. The combined catalog will total 32 malt products, including Murphy & Rude’s Virginia Pils, which will continue to use 100% Virginia-grown barley. English Pale, five Crystal malts, and eight dry-roasted malts will join Carolina Malt House’s base and high-kilned offerings, giving brewers and distillers a wider set of flavor and color tools from one source.

Murphy & Rude opened for production in early 2018 in Charlottesville as a specialty-focused malt house and now offers 30-plus products. The Common Grain Alliance puts the company at 200 tons of annual capacity and more than 100 breweries, distilleries, and bakeries. Carolina Malt House was founded in 2015 by two Rowan County natives and began selling in 2018, starting with one 20-ton production line. Carolina Malt House sources barley, wheat, and oats from farms within ten miles of its facility and serves nearly 200 craft breweries and distilleries across the Southeast. It also has 136,000 bushels of custom-designed raw grain storage on site.

Jeff Bloem, Murphy & Rude’s founder and head maltster, has framed the move as a response to market correction and the difficulty of scaling alone. Carolina Malt House co-founder Aaron Goss has described the partnership as a way to broaden the product mix without losing local character or freshness. Carolina Malt House will keep buying barley from Murphy & Rude’s Virginia farmers for Murphy & Rude products, and Bloem will continue handling sales, product development, and order fulfillment for the Murphy & Rude brands in Virginia.