Knees to the Earth — French & Jupps Maltings in Stanstead Abbotts, Hertfordshire
Metres from the banks of the River Lea, a flock of ducks is waddling. Scattered on the ground beneath their webbed feet is what they’re here for; malted barley kernels of various shades, from pale gold to deepest black. Behind them, rising tall, is the Rose and Crown Maltings, part of the small campus that makes up the headquarters and production facility of French & Jupps—the UK’s oldest existing producer of malted barley. Slim birds these are not.
You may not have heard the name French & Jupps before, but if you enjoy the occasional beer, and are based in either the United Kingdom or the USA, you’ve more than likely tasted its malt. Its long history stretches back to 1689, and for more than a century the maltster has been based in the twin Hertfordshire towns of Stanstead St. Margarets and Stanstead Abbots, bisected by the aforementioned Lea, some 30 miles north of London as the crow flies.
There are a few reasons for its relative anonymity—I myself hadn’t heard of them until I was invited for a visit in February 2024. One is due to the fact its malt was previously bought in bulk and rebagged by various distributors before being shipped out to breweries. And so, it might have carried the name of a competitor—although in this context it's perhaps more accurate to refer to them as partners—in the US, for example, until recently the malt was typically sold under the William Crisp banner.
Photography by Matthew Curtis
Another is because French & Jupps is highly specialised. It is only involved in the manufacture of roasted malt, which includes crystal malt and a family known as ‘patent malt’, comprising of shades from amber to brown to chocolate to black, and everything in between. The term ‘patent’ comes from the simple fact that historically a permit was required to produce these malts, and while this is no longer the case, it remains in use to this day.
More recently, French & Jupps has become increasingly motivated to get its name out in the open. Since 2020 the company has been under the stewardship of managing director Paul King, who is leading this push. An industry veteran of some repute, Paul has worked in brewing since 1988, with roles at Diageo, SAB Miller, and as a former brewmaster for Anheuser Busch taking him all over the world. Day-to-day his role at French & Jupps shifts from looking after the company’s financials, to engaging directly with its wide variety of customers.
“I try to get out to every customer each year. That’s a real commitment from ourselves, and we pretty much achieve that,” Paul tells me.
“What I’m trying to do now is trying to diversify locally to home, while retaining a strong presence in the critical North American craft beer market.”
Being solely a producer of crystal and roasted malts means it’s unlikely you’ll find its products in any lagers or pale ales, and certainly not within the most fussed-over hazy IPAs. This maltster is responsible for bringing flavour and colour to what could be considered more venerable styles of beer, such as bitter, mild, porter, and stout.
Finding its malt out in the real world can be as simple as heading to the pub for a pint. One particularly wonderful example of it in action can be found in XX Mild from Harvey’s Brewery of Lewes, East Sussex—a remarkably robust and flavourful beer, despite weighing in at just 3% ABV. It’s also notable for its colour; a rich, deep Coca-Cola brown. According to head brewer Miles Jenner, 13.5% of its grain bill features crystal malt produced by French & Jupps.
“Obviously [the malt] contributes to the colour of the beer but it also imparts a rounded, nutty palate that is soft and in no way astringent,” Miles tells me. “Hardly surprising that the bottled XX Mild used to be labelled as ‘Nut Brown Ale’.”
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Before French & Jupps became maltsters, the Jupp family were farmers. Established in 1689, they were based in West Sussex until around 1790, when then owner William Jupp moved to Kew, in the London borough of Chiswick. Here he had the foresight to move into malting, utilising his family’s considerable agricultural experience in order to make the transition.
In 1810 he was able to purchase a maltings of his own, located right by Kew Bridge on the Brentford side of the River Thames. The Jupp family would run the maltings here for almost a century.
William eventually acquired a second maltings, this time located at the Strand on the Green in Chiswick. Not long after they added a small roasting plant located close to London’s Liverpool Street station, which would go on to define the business as a roasted malt specialist.
Around 1860, the French name would finally become entangled with that of Jupp. Margaret French was a barge owner. Her fleet of five boats was able to move the various types of malt the Jupps were producing up and down the River Thames, into London and beyond. One notable local customer was Fuller, Smith and Turner (better known these days simply as Fuller’s) whose Griffin Brewery was, and still is, also located in Chiswick. According to Miles Jenner, Harvey’s—itself founded in 1790—has written evidence that it has been using French & Jupps crystal malt in its beer since 1859.
At the start of the 20th century the business, by now known as French & Jupps, acquired the Riverside Maltings in Stanstead Abbotts. Shortly afterwards it acquired the Rose and Crown maltings directly across the yard. Today, the Riverside Maltings has been converted into various offices for hire, with the maltster acting as landlord. Parts of this building are still used by French & Jupps, including for the laboratory. Here, every single batch of the 8500 tonnes of malt produced here annually undergoes stringent quality control.
Across the yard (past the feasting flock of mallards) the Rose and Crown maltings are humming with activity. HGV’s are loaded and unloaded as forklifts ridden by men in hi-vis jackets zoom about the yard. From a large chimney extruding from the building at its rear, smoke rises, filling the air with an acrid, bitter aroma, somewhere between burnt toast and strong espresso. This tells me that the roasters are in action today, rising to temperatures of up to 250ºC for the darkest of the 14 malt types it currently produces.
“We’re very proud of the fact that we totally specialise in roasted malts,” Paul says. “It’s our bread and butter. It’s our game.”
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Inside the malthouse low sunlight breaks through its windows, casting the steamy, smoky air with a golden, ethereal light. Immediately to our left are four large, tubular germination tanks; giants of cast iron, turning slowly as the grain within undergoes the second part of the malting process. Above these are the steep tanks where the process begins.
Climbing up steps and ladders high into the building we’re able to look down on vats of soaking grain, with spurts of water and barley kernels leaping into the air occasionally as it’s continuously aerated.
During the steeping process the moisture content of the grain inside each kernel is raised to between 42% and 45%. Once germination begins, the barley produces enzymes able to break down the complex starches and proteins inside the grain, allowing easier access to the sugars within.
Unlike with pale malt, however, crystal malt is not kilned. Instead it heads straight for the roasting drum, where varying degrees of heat—starting at around 150ºC are applied to achieve different crystallation levels of the now accessible sugars.
“For a pale crystal essentially you manage the time and temperatures very carefully, but as you go into some of the darker crystals you basically run those for longer in order to really pick up that rich colour,” Paul says.
““...suddenly you’re picking up that lovely treacle note, then a lot of demerara sugar, and a lot of molasses as you get into the really dark crystal malts.””
“The lighter crystals carry wonderful, delicate, sugar, caramel, syrupy notes, and very fresh raisins,” he adds. “As you get into some of the darker crystals, suddenly you're picking up that lovely treacle note, then a lot of demerara sugar, and a lot of molasses as you get into the really dark crystal malts.”
The process involved in making patent malt, which comprises around 50% of French & Jupps total production, differs slightly from crystal malt. Here germination is halted early and the grains are then sent to the kiln. This is because, as Paul explains, patent malts are not reliant on enzymes in the same way that crystal malt is.
The kilning process is similar to how a pale malt would be treated, and from here the freshly kilned-malt is sent to the roasters in small batches of about three tonnes. At this stage, fascinatingly, each batch is roasted manually, and dialled in by eye.
In a control room a large panel that looks like it would be right at home inside a Soviet-era nuclear rector, strewn with blinking, circular lights and buttons of reds, yellows, oranges and greens is used to monitor the roasting process. Behind it is a lightbox—just under a metre squared—and inside this is a small electronic coffee grinder and various small piles of freshly roasted, crushed barley.
On the far right hand side is the darkest pile, the control from a previous batch. Every few minutes the person in charge of that roast jogs into the control room, grinds up a small batch of malt, and then compares it to the control sample.
Once the same level of colour and consistency is achieved, the roasted malt is then transported into the adjacent building to be cooled, with samples pulled off and sent to the lab for analysis. The process is exceedingly delicate, with the darkest levels of patent malt taken close to the combustion point of the grain, at which point it would be rendered useless.
With all the rushing about involved the whole process feels quite stressful to an outsider, but the roasting plant operators who’ve honed their craft over several years, seem to take it in their effortless stride.
“We are totally reliant on the maltster and their decades of experience,” Paul says. “They’re using all five senses: they’re listening, they’re touching the malt, they’re visually assessing it, tasting… they’re really assessing it quite deeply, and when they think it’s right, that’s it.”
Key to the production of roasted malt is the robustness of the barley kernel itself. For this reason only winter barley is used by French & Jupps, with the more fragile husk found in spring varieties not being as well suited to the roasting process. It also tends to stick to modern varieties—including Orwell, Carat, Hawking, and Tardis—as opposed to heritage varieties like Maris Otter, which isn’t suited to the high temperature processes that are required for the production of crystal and patent malts.
“All [of our barley] is sourced from within 30 miles of the maltings,” Paul says. “We’re quite proud of the fact we work with the local farming community and support them, it’s quite special.
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Walking across the yard and back towards the Riverside Maltings, one of the workers zooming around on a forklift dismounts and stops for a chat.
Jamie Olsen is a warehouseman, responsible for weighing and bagging off one tonne sacks of malt, in addition to cleaning the barley holding bins and germination tanks. I ask how much busier it gets during harvest time, expecting an exasperated reply, but I’m told this is a steadier time of year.
Instead, he informs me that peak times are between September and December. This makes perfect sense if you consider the seasonality of drinking and darker beers being more popular around winter. More dark beer means more roasted malt.
“I’ve worked here for thirteen years and so has my brother Matthew,” Jamie tells me. “It's a lovely company to work for, they look after you here.”
Back inside the Riverside maltings, Paul shows me the lab, where every single batch of incoming grain and outgoing malt undergoes thorough analysis. While much of the processes over in the malthouse are done by eye, here those processes are then thoroughly checked to ensure each batch has hit its quality targets. Once the laboratory results have been processed, various bins of malt are then blended together to achieve their market specification.
“Depending on the customer we try to use the analysis that they like,” lab technician Karen Watson tells me.
“Some brewers like a visual colour analysis, and some brewers like that colour read on a spectrophotometer. If they’re an American customer we test it the American way, if they’re a European customer we test it the European way, and if they’re a British customer we test it the British way.”
From here, the malt is then ready to be sent to market. Much will travel to traditional brewers, including the aforementioned Harvey’s—Shepherd Neame in Kent uses its crystal malt in its annual Christmas Ale, while local brewery McMullen’s, which has been using French & Jupps malt in its beer for more than 150 years, makes wonderful use of it in its AK Mild.
It’s also reassuring to hear from Paul that younger breweries are embracing the use of roasted malts. London’s Hackney Church Brewery has become a hugely loyal customer of theirs, and Paul practically coos in delight when mentioning Vanishing Point, a series of whisky barrel-aged imperial stouts produced by Scotland’s Innis and Gunn.
“For Vanishing Point, we deliberately select chocolate malt, roasted barley, and dark crystal malt from French & Jupps,” says Alex Cox, site leader at Innis & Gunn’s Perth-based brewery.
“Each plays a distinct role in shaping the beer’s character, and together they form the foundation of its depth and complexity.”
Alex explains how each malt component brings its own distinct character to the finished beer. Chocolate malt brings “refined richness and smoothness without too much bitterness” and this lays the groundwork for the other ingredients. Roasted barley adds “structure and integrity” with hints of espresso, and a dryness that prevents the beer from becoming cloying.
Dark crystal then provides “layers of caramelised sweetness, a dried fruit character, and a touch of toffee.” It also helps to round out any potential astringency and enhance the sweetness that will be picked up from the whisky barrels it will age in for up to a year.
“I pour myself a small glass of the garnet-hued beer, crowned handsomely with a head of foam the colour of freshly spun burlap”
Vanishing Point’s seventh edition—released in December 2023—was aged for nine months in Glenlivet casks, and a further three in port barrels. I pour myself a small glass of the garnet-hued beer, crowned handsomely with a head of foam the colour of freshly spun burlap.
This is an inviting beer, one with rich, sweet aromas of dates, molasses, vanilla and plenty of oaky, whisky-tinged character. At 11% ABV I am expecting a wallop, but it sips with a whisper. The flavours are delicate and integrated, not harsh or in any way antagonistic.
This is a beer to slow down with, and a perfect vehicle to help understand what happens behind the scenes at French & Jupps. Barley is so often reduced to the sum of its parts; something that provides colour, sweetness, fermentable sugars, and some flavour. But here inside these maltings it feels like so much more than that. It feels like potential. The potential for flavour, for conversation, and for plenty of wonderful beer.
“If you go back to William Jupp’s time, to when he took on the maltings in Central London to roast out there—I think that’s just stayed with us, and we’ve never moved away from that,” Paul says. “Here we are today proudly roasting our 14 malt types, and we’ve enjoyed a lot of success by doing that. By being niche. By being special. By being different.”
