Australia: While the grain harvest in many states is winding down, Tasmania's headers are just starting to fire up, the ABC National Rural News commented on December 29, 2004. Barley is one of the first crops to come off, and this year, northern grain growers have pipped the southerners at the post, delivering the first malting barley to Hobart brewer, Cascade.

Cascade's Maltings Manager, Roger Ibbott, is looking for 8,000 tonnes of malting barley this year to cater for growing demand. "We got our first deliveries on Christmas Eve," he said, "then it gradually builds up. But the grain quality, as I had suspected, the grain quality is turning out to be pretty good, although some of the yields are not as the growers would have hoped."

29 December, 2004