Red Shed Malting

New Release: Homegrown Italian Pilsner 🌾

We’re excited to be part of Homegrown, a new Italian Pilsner from Alley Kat Brewing’s Back Alley Brews series.

Brewed with Red Shed malt, this crisp lager showcases notes of fresh bread, earthy malt, and light honey, balanced by a moderate bitterness that keeps you coming back for another sip.

From Alberta fields to your glass, this is exactly the kind of collaboration we love to see. Cheers to the team at Alley Kat Brewery for bringing it to life, and to for the incredible custom artwork that helps tell the story behind the beer. 🍺🎨

“Bo's Bar and Stage just celebrated a pretty big milestone, and it has me reflecting on what Bo’s has meant to me and to Red Shed over the years.

It’s been more than a place to grab a beer. It’s been friendships, celebrations, concerts, late nights and countless memories — including meeting my wife, Sonja. ❤️

A lot of those memories include my good friend Brennen, too. 🤝

30 years, and my fave 30 memories:

1. ❤️ Meeting my wife, Sonja
2. 🎶 All of the concerts
3. 🐦‍🔥 Wing Wednesdays
4. 🤗 Dusty hugs and getting to know so many staff by name
5. 🎤 Forum events
6. 🎄 Christmas parties
7. 🎤 Lip Sync Battles
8. 💍 Brennen’s wedding
9. 🍗 Celebrity Chicken Chef
10. 😂 Battle of Alberta → Optimist Comedy Nights
11. 💰 Other pub night fundraisers
12. 🍺 Red Shed Malting tap takeovers
13. 🍻 Bo’s going all Alberta craft beer on tap
14. 🏆 Alberta Beer Awards
15. ☘️ St. Patrick’s Day shenanigans
16. 🏈 NFL football (and the trip giveaway)
17. ❄️ Miracle at Bo’s / Winterlust
18. 🍸 Aaron’s cocktails
19. 💍 Bo’s catering, bartending and livestreaming my wedding at the Red Shed
20. 🏒 Early morning Team Canada Olympic hockey games
21. 🥪 Friday office lunches
22. 🌾 Meeting of the Maltsters
23. 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 $3 Scotch Eggs
24. 👑 The Vice Mayor of Red Deer
25. 🐶 After parties (and petting dogs)
26. 🍽️ Bo’s catering
27. 🥪 Bo’s Sandwich Club
28. 🎹 Duelling Pianos NYE parties
29. 🍺 20 oz pints of Blindman Barleywine
30. 🍗 Fried chicken sandwiches

And that’s really what Bo’s has been to me — more than a place to grab a beer. It’s been a huge part of my life, and a huge part of the Red Shed story.

Happy milestone birthday, Bo’s. Thanks for all the memories. 🍻❤️”

-Matt Hamill

From field to malt, it all starts here. 🌾

John is checking the crops regularly as we move into the hard dough stage, while equipment is being serviced and dialled in for harvest.

We’re estimating we could start in the peas as early as next weekend. Harvest is getting close!

At Hamill Farms, precision in the field is the first step toward consistent, flavourful craft malt. 🌾🚜

Collabs 🤝

We’re constantly telling people that we work in the coolest industry out there. The amount of collaboration in craft beer is truly inspiring. And there are some great collabs on the market right now. 🍻

The Gateway Collab Series from Sea Change Brewing Co. brought together four Calgary breweries for four very different beers:

🍺 Sea Change Brewing Co. x Cold Garden Beverage Company — Dank IPA
🍺 Sea Change Brewing x Two Pillars Brewery — Hoppy Witbier
🍺 Sea Change Brewing x Cabin Brewing Company — Hazy IPA
🍺 Sea Change Brewing x Brewsmith Brewing — New Zealand Pilsner

Four breweries. Four beers. One very cool collaboration all made with Red Shed.

Available at all four participating breweries, plus the new Skelly Club in Calgary, Sea Change Brewing in Edmonton and Beaumont and taste your way through the series!

We want to encourage more collaboration, and that’s why we’ve been running our Collab Pricing Program throughout all of 2026.

When you use Red Shed for the base malt in a collaboration, you save 25% on the cost of our malt. That savings can help cover shipping for out-of-province collabs, go toward marketing the beer, be donated to charity, or whatever makes sense for your project.

The 25% collab pricing program is here for the rest of 2026, so if you’ve got a collaboration in the works, let’s make some beer.

Some exciting new releases have been hitting the market lately, and we couldn’t be more excited to see breweries collaborating and showcasing what craft malt can bring to a beer.

From hazy IPAs and West Coast IPAs to New Zealand Pilsners, Italian Pilsners, hoppy witbiers, and refreshing lagers, these brewers are proving that great beer starts with great ingredients. We love seeing our farm-grown, craft malt become part of these unique collaborations and helping brewers create beers with character, consistency, and dependable quality.

If you spot any of these releases, give them a try and taste the difference that craft malt can make:

🍻 Sea Change Brewing Co. x Cabin Brewing Company – Gateway No. 04 Hazy IPA
🍻 Alley Kat Brewery x – HomeGrown Italian Pilsner
🍻 Irrational Brewing Company x The Establishment Brewing Company – The West Coast IPA
🍻 x Brewsmith Brewing – Gateway No. 01 New Zealand Pilsner
🍻 x Two Pillars Brewery – Gateway No. 02 Hoppy Witbier
🍻 Born Brewing Co. x Three Bears Brewery & Restaurant, Banff – High Season Salted Lime Lager

Our team loves seeing these collaborations come to life, and there’s more to come. Stay tuned for more releases made with Red Shed craft malt 💕

Shortly before Red Shed started, the Brewers Association released a white paper outlining the ideal attributes they wanted to see in a base malt. Of paramount importance was improved flavour, and after that, they provided guidance on ideal specifications. We’ve always used this as a guiding beacon for what to strive for. 🌟

We recently transitioned into malting barley from our 2025 growing season, and this barley is absolutely spectacular. It’s helping us hit some ideal specs, and we’ve recently updated our spec sheet based on the results we’re seeing from the new crop. 📈

Our spec sheets are based on the averages we’re seeing across our batches. Results can vary from batch to batch, so as an example, here are the specs from a recent batch of Parkland Pale and Penhold Pilsner. 🌾

We’re pretty dang proud of these results. If you’re not using our base malt, we encourage you to compare these numbers to the Brewers Association white paper and to the base malt you’re currently using.

https://www.brewersassociation.org/educational-publications/malting-barley-characteristics/

If you’d like help understanding any of the specs, please reach out to Matt.

🌾 Field Update 🌾

The crops are looking great across the farm, and we’re feeling optimistic as we move closer to harvest. Another shot of rain would certainly be welcome, but the barley, wheat, and peas appear to have enough moisture to finish the season. The canola would benefit the most from additional rainfall to help maintain its yield potential.

Our barley is filling well and has now reached the soft dough stage. Last year, we were pleasantly surprised by the excellent barley yields despite the dry conditions. This year, the crop looks even better.

Things are looking pretty optimistic on the farm, especially if we get some more rain soon. 🌦️🌾

— Farmer John (August 1st, 2026)

Our customers are the best! 🙌🌾

Here’s the malt heading out the door this week (so far)! A huge thank you to the brewers and distillers who continue to trust us with your craft.

We can’t wait to celebrate our customers this Monday, July 27th at our Customer Appreciation Field Day! 🎉 If you’ve got your tickets, we’ll see you there!

There’s still time to join us! If you’re a commercial brewer or distiller and would like to attend, reach out to [email protected] to reserve your spot.

Spoiler alert… we’ll have prizes to give away, including an awesome grand prize! 🎁