When people talk about what gives beer its flavor, hops tend to get most of the attention.

They’re citrusy. They’re piney. They’re tropical. They get their own varieties listed on cans and taproom menus.

But underneath all of that is an ingredient doing a huge amount of the heavy lifting: malt.

Malt provides the sugars yeast turns into alcohol. It contributes to the color of your beer. It affects body, aroma, sweetness, head retention, and flavors ranging from fresh bread and crackers to caramel, chocolate, coffee, and toast.

In other words, hops may get the headlines, but malt builds the beer.

So what exactly is malt—and how can the same basic ingredient help create everything from a crisp golden lager to a nearly black stout?

First Things First: What Is Malt?

Most brewing malt begins as barley.

Barley straight from the field isn’t quite ready to become beer. Before a brewer can use it, the grain goes through a process called malting.

The barley is soaked in water, which encourages the grain to begin germinating. As it germinates, enzymes develop that will eventually help break the grain’s starches into fermentable sugars.

Before the barley can grow into a new plant, the maltster stops the process by drying the grain in a kiln.

That sounds simple enough, but this is where things start getting interesting.

The temperature, duration, and method used to dry or roast the malt can dramatically change its flavor and color. Think about what happens when you toast a piece of bread. A lightly toasted slice tastes very different from one that’s dark and crunchy.

Malt works in much the same way.

Malt Is Where Beer Gets Its Sugar

Before yeast can make alcohol, it needs something to eat.

That’s one of malt’s most important jobs.

During the brewing process, crushed malt is mixed with warm water in the mash tun. Enzymes within the malt begin converting starches in the grain into sugars, creating a sweet liquid called wort.

The wort eventually moves on to the boil, fermentation, and the rest of the brewing process.

When yeast is added, it consumes many of those sugars and produces alcohol and carbon dioxide.

So when you crack open a beer, there’s a pretty direct line from a kernel of malted barley to the alcohol in your glass.

But not all of those sugars ferment completely, and that’s part of what gives different beers their character.

Malt Changes How a Beer Feels

Ever had one beer that seemed incredibly light and crisp while another felt rich, smooth, or almost chewy?

Malt plays a big role in that difference.

The grain bill, the combination of malts and other grains used in a recipe, helps determine how much body a beer has and how much residual sweetness remains after fermentation.

A brewer making a crisp lager might build a recipe designed for a clean, dry finish. A Scotch ale, porter, or stout may call for a richer malt profile that gives the beer more weight and depth.

That doesn’t necessarily mean the darker beer is sweeter. Color, body, and sweetness aren’t the same thing.

A nearly black stout can actually finish relatively dry, while a much lighter beer can contain noticeable residual sweetness.

That’s one reason judging a beer entirely by its color can be misleading.

From Crackers to Coffee: The Malt Flavor Spectrum

Here’s where malt really starts showing off.

Different malts can contribute remarkably different flavors.

Lightly kilned base malts can bring flavors reminiscent of fresh bread, crackers, grain, dough, or honey.

Go a little darker and you can begin finding toast, biscuit, and bread crust.

Certain specialty malts can add caramel, toffee, raisins, dried fruit, or burnt sugar.

Push the roasting process even further and flavors can move toward cocoa, dark chocolate, espresso, roasted coffee, or char.

And brewers don’t have to choose just one.

A recipe may use a large amount of relatively neutral base malt with much smaller additions of specialty malts to layer in specific flavors.

It’s a little like seasoning food: sometimes a relatively small amount of an ingredient can dramatically change the finished product.

Malt Also Gives Beer Its Color

That beautiful gold in a Kölsch?

Malt.

The copper-red hue of an Irish red?

Malt.

The deep brown or black of a porter or stout?

Yep. Malt again.

Generally, the more intensely a malt has been kilned or roasted, the darker it becomes—and the more color it contributes to the finished beer.

This allows brewers to build an enormous range of colors using different combinations of grain.

And once again, a little can go a long way. A brewer doesn’t need an entire mash tun full of roasted malt to make a dark beer. Small percentages of intensely roasted grains can have a dramatic impact on color and flavor.

Base Malt vs. Specialty Malt

One easy way to understand a beer’s grain bill is to think about malt in two broad categories.

Base malt is the foundation. It usually makes up the majority of the grain used in a beer and provides much of the fermentable sugar needed for fermentation.

Specialty malt adds character. Brewers use it to adjust color, aroma, body, sweetness, and flavor.

Imagine building a sandwich. Base malt is the bread. You need it to hold the whole thing together.

Specialty malt is everything you start adding to make that particular sandwich interesting.

Depending on the beer, a brewer may want those additions to be barely noticeable, or make them the star of the show.

What About Wheat, Oats, and Other Grains?

Barley may be the workhorse of brewing, but it doesn’t have the brewery all to itself.

Brewers can incorporate wheat, oats, rye, corn, rice, and other grains into recipes to change flavor, texture, appearance, and fermentation characteristics.

Wheat can contribute a soft grain character and help with head retention.

Oats are commonly used to add a silky, creamy mouthfeel; one reason you’ll frequently see them in stouts and modern hazy IPAs.

Rye can bring a distinctive spicy grain character.

Every addition gives the brewer another lever to pull when designing a beer.

Malt and Hops Aren’t Opponents

It’s tempting to think of beer as a battle between malt and hops.

It really isn’t.

Great beer is about how the ingredients work together.

In a hop-forward IPA, malt creates the foundation that allows those hop flavors to shine without the beer feeling thin or unbalanced.

In an American pale ale, malt character can provide just enough breadiness or subtle sweetness to complement the hops.

In an Irish red, Märzen, brown ale, porter, or stout, malt may move much closer to center stage.

Even the most hop-obsessed beer drinker is tasting malt whether they realize it or not.

Try Tasting Malt the Next Time You Have a Beer

Here’s an experiment for your next beer.

Before you start hunting for hop flavors, ignore them for a moment.

Take a sip and ask yourself:

What does the grain remind me of?

Fresh bread? Crackers? Toast? Biscuit? Caramel? Toffee? Chocolate? Coffee?

Then pay attention to the texture. Is the beer light and crisp? Soft and rounded? Rich and full?

You’ll start noticing something that was probably there all along.

Malt.

It may not always be the loudest ingredient in your glass, but without it, there wouldn’t be much of a beer to talk about.

Hops might give beer its swagger. Malt gives it somewhere to stand.