Pilot Brewing Australia is the body responsible for the pilot brewing of each commercially malted line of barley submitted for evaluation. PBA is an industry co-funded project with support from the GRDC, as well as the maltsters and barley marketers of Australia with in kind support from the Australian brewers.

Although the evaluation quantity brewed here is small, the malt has importantly come from a commercial batch in order to replicate commercial conditions as best as possible. The Pilot Brewery plant, located in Abbotsford, Melbourne has the ability to mimic many different styles of brewing and hence the plant can replicate brewing conditions in many of Australia's target malt and barley markets.

The results of the brewing trials are returned to the MBIBTC committee for review and a recommendation for Stage 1 or Malting accreditation is declared or declined. This recommendation is then forwarded to Barley Australia where if positive the variety becomes nationally accredited as malting.

This evaluation process enables new barley varieties to arrive in the commercial marketplace with known performance data behind them, making for an easier transition variety to variety.

Peter Healy, Lion Nathan, inspecting new malting variety trial crop	Wort sample testing	Kade Anderson, Foster's Group, and brewer for Pilot Brewing Australia