Rice Emerges as a Competitive Alternative for Malting, Potentially Boosting Domestic Demand

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — A new economics study shows the potential for an ancient process to develop new domestic demand for rice and offset declining exports.

That process is malting, which has been around for millennia but is usually associated with another grain — barley. But rice, which is grown prolifically in Arkansas, can also be malted and used as an additional sugar source in brewing beer.

Published this month in Nature Partner Journal Sustainable Agriculture, a cost-feasibility analysis found that using rice malt instead of milled rice in beer brewing, as performed by large breweries, would decrease the cost of beer production by 2 to 12 percent. Malted rice also reduces crop-growing acreage needs by half or more because it produces more grain per acre than barley while having an equivalent or greater sugar extract potential.

Brewers who currently use rice for brewing typically use milled rice, like what is found on grocery store shelves. Using this form of rice requires extra processing steps compared to malted rice. This study suggests that malting has the potential to decrease time and energy costs and make using rice more feasible for more small-scale craft brewers to make gluten-free beers.

Since rice is cultivated globally, the study noted, it also has the benefit of serving as a viable malting material for tropical and subtropical countries that currently rely on barley imports for brewing. Malting is a process that allows grains to sprout slightly under controlled conditions, resulting in biochemical changes important for beer production.

Closing an export gap

Arkansas grows more rice than any state in the nation, including half of the national long-grain rice. Domestic long-grain rice exports, however, have dipped about 7 percent over the past 15 years. About 43 percent of the long-grain rice grown in the U.S. was exported last year, down from 50 percent in 2010.

“Alternative markets, like malted rice, can backfill that decrease in exports,” said Lanier Nalley, professor and head of the agricultural economics and agribusiness department for the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture and the Dale Bumpers College of Agricultural, Food and Life Sciences at the University of Arkansas. “Developing a domestic market for our own rice ultimately could ensure the long-run sustainability of rice production in Arkansas.”

Nalley is a co-author of the malted rice feasibility study with researchers from the Center for Beverage Innovation, including Bumpers College food science graduate student Bernardo P. Guimaraes and Scott Lafontaine, assistant professor in the food science department for Bumpers College and the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station, the research arm of the Division of Agriculture.

Guimaraes and Lafontaine published research in 2024 with findings of several long-grain rice varieties that developed enough enzymatic activity to fully convert their starch source into fermentable sugar when malted. The rice malts also had many different and interesting aromas and flavors, Guimaraes said, which he believes can be used as a standalone raw material or in conjunction with barley malt. The results opened the door to take it to the economists.

Lightning in a bottle

“I was surprised,” Nalley said of the feasibility study on malted rice. “When we started this, I thought there’s no way this is going to work. How long have humans been drinking beer, and how long has rice been around? The economist in me thought, well if this would have worked, they would have done it 400 years ago! But I guess it took lightning in a bottle with Scott and Bernardo to put two and two together to figure this out, because this could work.”

Lafontaine said the disconnect between malted rice and beer may be because beer has been viewed through a “Germanic lens,” which has been influenced by the nation’s long-standing purity law that calls for just barley, hops, water and yeast as the only four ingredients allowed in beer.

“But when you look back at some of the ancient beers that are in Asia — they had millet, they had rice — and archaeologists have found evidence of cereal beverages made with rice,” Lafontaine said. “Who knows? Maybe that rice was malted.”

Lafontaine referred to a 2024 study published in Anthropology titled “Identification of 10,000-year-old rice beer at Shangshan in the Lower Yangzi River valley of China.” 

Gluten-free competition

The study also showed that beer made from 100 percent rice malt, which would make it gluten-free, costs about 30 percent more than barley-based beer.

Guimaraes said all-rice malt beers could come with a lower price tag compared to other traditional gluten-free alternatives and without flavor defects.

Gluten-free malts are generally considered “competitive” by brewers if they are no more than two times the cost of traditional barley malt, Guimaraes noted. With gluten-free beer sales seeing annual revenue increases of over 16 percent, this could potentially open a new market for Arkansas rice, he said.

The gluten limit set by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to be labeled “gluten-free” is 20 parts per million. Therefore, to ensure safety and prevent cross-contamination, “the use of dedicated gluten-free malts, malthouses and breweries is essential,” Guimaraes added.

The cost-feasibility analysis was supported in part by the Foundational Knowledge of Plant Products program, project award No. 13960138, from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture.

To learn more about the Division of Agriculture research, visit the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station website. Follow us on X at @ArkAgResearch, subscribe to the Food, Farms and Forests podcast and sign up for our monthly newsletter, the Arkansas Agricultural Research Report. To learn more about the Division of Agriculture, visit uada.edu. Follow us on X at @AgInArk. To learn about extension programs in Arkansas, contact your local Cooperative Extension Service agent or visit uaex.uada.edu.

About the Division of Agriculture

The University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture’s mission is to strengthen agriculture, communities, and families by connecting trusted research to the adoption of best practices. Through the Agricultural Experiment Station and the Cooperative Extension Service, the Division of Agriculture conducts research and extension work within the nation’s historic land grant education system.

The Division of Agriculture is one of 20 entities within the University of Arkansas System. It has offices in all 75 counties in Arkansas and faculty on three system campuses.  

Pursuant to 7 CFR § 15.3, the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture offers all its Extension and Research programs and services (including employment) without regard to race, color, sex, national origin, religion, age, disability, marital or veteran status, genetic information, sexual preference, pregnancy or any other legally protected status, and is an equal opportunity institution.

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Media Contact: John Lovett
U of A System Division of Agriculture
Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station
(479) 763-5929
jlovett@uada.edu

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