All honour to " Country Brewer," who writes a letter
on the food question to Wednesday's Times, to which too much publicity cannot be given. It will be remembered that Lord Milner, misled of course by his technical advisers, made a most unfortunate blunder in his statement to the House of Lords. He declared that when barley had been made into malt it ceased to be fit.for human consumption—we are quoting not his words but the effect of his speech. Therefore, as the barley had now become malt, it was crying over spilt milk to say that the Government could save food by stopping the brewing of beer. " Country Brewer " most properly states that more attention should be paid to malt flour as a valuable source of nutritious food, the use of which would economize wheat flour and sugar. Malt flour, he goes on, can be used to make excellent cake with fifty per cent. of wheat flour. It is sweet and
pleasant to the taste, he tells us, without the need of any sugar, and he proceeds to give some other most useful hints for employing it.
The process of malting, it appears, converts the starch in the grain into a form of sugar, and therefore supplies a double want. Then follows a most remarkable passage " The Food Controller's Department is aware of the practicability of using malt flour, but the sale is restricted in order to limit its use for making beer, while the making of malt from barley, of which considerable stocks are left on the maltsters' hands, is prohibited. Brewers and maltsters are too patriotic to wish to use for beer what could be applied to food in the case of a serious shortage, and the present large stocks of barley and malt can, if required, supplement the supply of wheat flour."
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