Barley

For nutrition, seek out hulled barley (sometimes labeled "hull-less barley") — the whole grain; pearled barley is easier to find but has had much of its fiber polished away. Choose plump, pale, evenly colored grains with no dust, broken bits, or musty smell.

Barley flakes, grits, and flour are increasingly available at health-food stores and online; for baking, barley flour adds a tender, moist crumb and a subtle sweet-malt flavor to breads, cookies, and pancakes. Malted barley products — malt vinegar, malted milk, and malt syrup — are pantry staples with the grain's deep, toasty sweetness.

Season: barley is a cool-season grain harvested in early summer (winter-sown) or late summer (spring-sown); dried grains, flakes, and flour are available year-round, while fresh barley greens (juiced as a supplement) appear in spring and summer.

Harvesting: Barley is harvested in summer when the stalks turn golden and the grain is hard and dry; the grain is threshed from the stalk and winnowed to remove the chaff, then dried for storage.

Hulling & pearling: The tough outer hull is inedible and must be removed; hulled barley keeps the bran, while pearled barley is further polished to remove the bran — a trade-off between faster cooking and lost nutrition.

Malting: Barley grain is steeped in water, allowed to germinate, then dried and roasted in a kiln to make malt; malting develops the enzymes and sugars needed to brew beer and whisky — one of humanity's oldest food-processing arts.

Drying: Fully dried barley grain keeps for a year or more in a sealed container in a cool, dry place — one of the great storable grains, the foundation of ancient and medieval granaries.

Malting & brewing: Malted barley — dried, roasted, and sometimes further brewed into beer — is a traditional way to preserve the grain's energy as a storable, drinkable form; malt, malt syrup, and beer all keep far longer than fresh grain.

Milling into flour: Barley flour keeps several months refrigerated; for best freshness, mill small batches as needed, or buy whole grain and store it dry until you cook or grind it.

Whole (hulled) barley is one of the most nutritious grains — rich in dietary fiber, especially the soluble fiber beta-glucan, the same heart-healthy fiber found in oats that helps lower cholesterol and steady blood sugar.

Barley provides good amounts of protein, B vitamins (niacin, thiamin, B6), iron, magnesium, phosphorus, manganese, and selenium; pearled barley retains less of these, but hulled barley keeps the bran and germ where most nutrients live.

Its low glycemic index and high fiber make barley a satisfying, slow-burning grain — a nourishing base for soups, salads, and porridges that supports digestion and heart health, and a gluten-containing grain (though lower in gluten than wheat) suitable for most but not for those with celiac disease.

Barley was domesticated in the Fertile Crescent around 10,000 years ago — one of the first crops ever cultivated, alongside einkorn wheat and emmer; ancient Egyptian bread and Sumerian beer were both made from barley, and the grain was used as currency and in religious offerings.

Roman gladiators were called "hordearii," or "barley men," because they were fed a barley-rich diet to build strength and endurance — and Greek athletes trained on a barley-based regimen, considering it the perfect fuel for the body.

Barley is the malting grain behind nearly all the world's beer and whisky — its husk protects the malt during malting and its high enzyme content converts starches to sugars; without barley, the brewing traditions of Bavaria, Scotland, and Japan would not exist.

The word "barrack" comes from an old word for a barley store, and the grain's Old English name, "bere," survives in Scottish place-names and in "barley-bree" (barley beer); bere barley is still grown in Scotland's Orkney as a heritage variety for bannocks and whisky.

Barley is celebrated from the Scottish Highlands to the Tibetan plateau, and wherever beer and whisky are brewed:

Cool-climate & hardy: Barley is a cool-season cereal that tolerates drought, poor soils, and short growing seasons better than wheat — it grows further north and higher than almost any other cereal, from Scotland to Tibet to the high Andes.

Low water & fast cycle: Barley needs less water than wheat and matures quickly, making it well suited to dryland farming and to marginal lands; it is grown as both a spring-sown and winter-sown crop, harvested early to free the land for the next planting.

Global range: Barley originated in the Fertile Crescent and is now grown across every temperate grain region — Russia, Europe, North America, the Mediterranean, Ethiopia, the Tibetan plateau, and the Andes — ranking among the world's top four cereals and thriving where other grains cannot.