Glossary
Black malt
Malt roasted almost to carbon, used in small quantities for colour and sharp roast character.
Also called patent malt, black patent malt.
The full record
Black malt has its own catalogue entry with the detail this page summarises — causes, thresholds, related styles and evidence.
Black malt — The darkest roasted malt, used sparingly for colour and sharp burnt character.
Black patent malt was patented in 1817 by Daniel Wheeler, and it changed British brewing: it allowed brewers to produce dark beer from a mostly pale grist, which was more efficient than using large quantities of brown malt. The porter that followed was a different beer from the porter before it.
Related
- Roasted barley — The unmalted equivalent.
- English porter — The style its invention reshaped.
More vocabulary
Adjunct · Aroma hop · Base malt · Bittering hop · Brettanomyces · Candi sugar · Chocolate malt · Crystal malt · Dextrin · Dual-purpose hop
See every term on the glossary index.
Last reviewed 2026-08-16.