THE BEER BEAT: Valley Malt. Pioneer Valley. It all comes back to me now.

Five years ago I had the opportunity to attend the American Distilling Institute's annual conference, which was held in 2012 at Huber's Orchard, Winery, Vineyards and Starlight Distillery.

Sticking a toe in the (distilled) water at the ADI annual conference.

In return for watering the attendees with NABC beer, I was allowed the full run of seminars and meetings. The single most memorable one of these was a presentation by Andrea Stanley of Valley Malt, an indie micro maltster located in Western Massachusetts.

Valley Malt

A farmer growing local grain, a local maltster hand-turning that grain into malt, and a local brewer crafting a truly local beer to be enjoyed by their neighbors. Valley Malt and its partners are working to create this vision of a transparent, localized supply chain that connects us to the land and to each other. This is a landscape built on risk, love, and cooperation and it is truly a view to behold. Grab a glass and taste the view.

As bright as one might fancy himself to be, it remains that epiphanies are sometimes required to retain simple concepts. Valley Malt's presence at ADI was one of these.

I learned about the company's plan to produce a product line of certain types of malt, as demanded by brewers and distiller, as leading to the establishment of an old school supply chain; farmers nearby avoided risk by raising barley they knew Valley Malt would buy, to be malted and sold to brewers and distillers who already had indicated they'd purchase them from Valley Malt.

There are two overarching points to this digression.

The most obvious is to reiterate that localism in barley malt (and hops) means very little without an intermediary close by to process raw crops from the field for use in the brewhouse (or in the case of malt, by distillers, too).

And, during two recent trips to Western Massachusetts, it never once occurred to me that Valley Malt might be located nearby, as in fact it is -- in Hadley, just a few miles from Diana's niece's family in South Hadley. We almost certainly were within minutes of the malting, and may well have passed it a half-dozen while driving back and forth.

All the while I remained oblivious. Maybe next time.

As a side note, All About Beer Magazine has an interesting profile of brewing ingredients. An overview appears on-line, but you'll need to buy the magazine to get the bulk of it.

THE FUTURE OF BEER INGREDIENTS

New England 2017: On a rainy day, a walk around the Mt. Holyoke College campus.

The Odyssey Bookstore in South Hadley had Ivan Klima's memoir in hardback at a very low price. I couldn't resist.

As is my usual custom, I'll be posting photos, commentary and links about our trip; the daily accounts will be back-dated to coincide with their occurrence. It won't be the most thrilling reading, but in addition to whatever else NAC may or may not have become over the years, it's still a personal blog, and you're fully entitled to views of our holiday.

Mt. Holyoke College is a women's liberal arts college in South Hadley, Massachusetts, just up the road from where Diana's niece lives.

Chemist and educator Mary Lyon founded Mount Holyoke College (then called Mount Holyoke Female Seminary) in 1837, nearly a century before women gained the right to vote. Today, her famous words—"Go where no one else will go, do what no one else will do"—continue to inspire Mount Holyoke students.

As the first of the Seven Sisters—the female equivalent of the once predominantly male Ivy League—Mount Holyoke has led the way in women's education.

Mt. Holyoke College is part of the Five College Consortium.

Five Colleges, Incorporated is a nonprofit educational consortium established in 1965 to promote the broad educational and cultural objectives of its member institutions, which include four private, liberal arts colleges and the Amherst campus of the state university. The consortium is an outgrowth of a highly successful collaboration in the 1950s among Amherst College, Mount Holyoke College, Smith College, and the University of Massachusetts Amherst, which resulted in the founding of a fifth institution, Hampshire College, in 1970.

Broaden the search, and education in the Pioneer Valley looks like this:

Five Colleges consortium
Amherst College - Amherst
Hampshire College - Amherst
Mount Holyoke College - South Hadley
Smith College - Northampton
University of Massachusetts Amherst - Amherst

Metro Springfield Universities
American International College - Springfield
Bay Path University - Longmeadow
Cambridge College - Springfield
Elms College - Chicopee
Springfield College - Springfield
Western New England University -Springfield
Westfield State University - Westfield

Graduate Schools
Conway School of Landscape Design - Conway, Easthampton

Community colleges
Greenfield Community College - Greenfield
Holyoke Community College - Holyoke
Springfield Technical Community College -Springfield

Perhaps the huge number of schools helps to explain the equally large number of bookstores.

It rained most of the morning on Friday. We'd already amassed steaks, vegetables and wine for an evening grilling, and when skies cleared, I went for a walk through the Mt. Holyoke College campus.

Later that evening, after the wine was all gone, Ben honored me with a final New England IPA. It might have been the best of all. These past few years, I've found big IPAs and like-minded hop bombs almost painful to drink. Invariably, they set my sinuses to shutdown mode.

However, on this most recent trip, I didn't experience this reaction. Maybe the Pioneer Valley is better for my head than the Ohio Valley.

Friday was our final evening with Jen, Ben and Ruby. We said our goodbyes (for now), returned to the Airbnb, packed and made ready for the flight back from Hartford on Saturday.

New England 2017: From the top of Mt. Holyoke, the Pioneer Valley is stunning.

The sound is crummy because of the wind.

As is my usual custom, I'll be posting photos, commentary and links about our trip; the daily accounts will be back-dated to coincide with their occurrence. It won't be the most thrilling reading, but in addition to whatever else NAC may or may not have become over the years, it's still a personal blog, and you're fully entitled to views of our holiday.

Jen was off work for spring break (Ben wasn't), and the weather was favorable -- cool but clear -- so we took Ruby for a hike up Mt. Holyoke.

I should say: "Jen took Ruby for a hike." Diana and I merely walked alongside mother and daughter, all the way up to the top.

It's called Skinner State Park, and there's a building called Summit House, located just where you'd expect. Jen and Ben got married there. There's also preserve called Mt. Holyoke Range State Park. The wooded hills rise from the Connecticut River, with the valley being referred to as the Pioneer Valley.

As a stray historical reference, the nearby town of Hadley was settled 200 years before the American Civil War.

Those big buildings on the horizon? They're in Hartford, Connecticut -- approximately 45 miles away.

In route back to South Hadley, we stopped at Barstow's Dairy Store & Bakery for lunch, followed a bit later by the hiker's reward, as brewed by Tree House.

I drink very few IPAs these days, but Ben's a fan. He had his garage fridge packed with hoppy regional specialties, so when in the Pioneer Valley ... you drink a fine example of New England IPA just like this one.

It was without a doubt the best beer I've ever consumed while watching folks fell a dead tree -- in this case, Ben and his dad Marc, with the help of Marc's Unimog, working in Ben and Jen's back yard while the rest of us applauded from the patio.

At some point, chicken breasts and asparagus were thrown on the grill. I was on another Doppelganger by then.

Next: Walking around Northampton.