Excerpt:

How rakishly clever! When Admiral Maltings opened last spring on Alameda’s former Naval Air Station as California’s first post-Prohibition craft barley-malting facility — or micro-maltster in beer-geek parlance — there was considerable buzz in the Northern California brewery world. Now the team behind Admiral, Ron Silberstein (ThirstyBear Organic Brewery), Dave McLean (Magnolia Brewing) and head maltster Curtis Davenport, are opening a new beer-centric pub, dubbed The Rake, onsite.

When the new pub opens on Jan. 26, you’ll be able to sip beer — 20 beers on draft and two cask-conditioned ales — made with Admiral malts as you nosh pub fare and watch the ancient practice of floor-malting in action as germinated, Northern California-sourced barley is dried, raked and cured.

This whole craft-malting thing is a microbrewery revolution-meets-locavore movement development. The rise of small craft breweries and hops obsession has broadened to include a newfound malt obsession, because if you’re going to go all locavore and artisanal about your brewing, sourcing one of the most basic brewing ingredients from Cargill or another international commercial malting facility makes no sense at all. Small, craft-malting facilities — including Admiral Maltings — have begun opening across the U.S. to sate the demand for specific types of malt.