Bere (grain)

[4][6][7] It often referred to barley of a lower yield, and the phrase "bear meal marriage" usually meant one that would not bring much wealth with it.

Smout writes: "In Scotland, there is no evidence of such variation possibly because the range of crops was so much smaller — often only oats or bear (a primitive form of barley)".

[10][1] In the 19th and early 20th centuries, bere was an important crop in the Highlands and Islands region of Scotland, providing grain for milling and malting and straw for thatching and animal bedding.

Research at the James Hutton Institute has shown that bere is particularly able to grow in alkaline soils with low metal micronutrients,[11] such as the increased manganese use efficiency demonstrated when grown in manganese-deficient conditions such as those found in the Orkney Islands,[12][13][14] resistance to the fungal disease scald,[15] and tolerance to salinity stress.

Historical accounts from the 15th century onward show that Orkney produced large amounts of malt and beer, most of it probably from bere.

In the early 21st century some distillers began experimenting again with bere, and in 2006, the UK's most northern brewery released a bere-based microbrew.