SPOKANE — The Grain Shed cooperative has added canned beer to its bakery and micro-brewery business.

The co-op recently contract-brewed a batch with Iron Horse Brewery in Ellensburg, Wash., said Grain Shed brewer-owner Teddy Benson. The batch produced 25 barrels, or 260 cases of six 16-ounce four-packs.

The beer will be distributed in the Spokane area, to smaller restaurants, markets and bars. The co-op plans to reach out to larger stores in the future, Benson said. A tasting event is in the works.

“This has been a long time coming for us,” Benson said. “This was a big part of what our original plan was.”

The co-op specializes in organic practices and ancient or landrace grains.

“We’ve really been able to start catching our stride using these unique grains,” Benson said.

The beer is made using purple Egyptian barley grown by Endicott-based farmer-owner Don Scheuerman through Palouse Heritage Grains.

It’s mostly hulless, with a dried-fruit flavor similar to dried apricots and the cereal Grape Nuts, Benson said. The brewers used hops to balance the sweetness of the smaller grain for a light, malty beer.

It took some doing for the brewers to figure out the best way to use the barley.

“We really had to do a lot of mill adjustments when brewing to make sure we were cracking it open as much as we possibly could to be able to get the best extraction off of it,” Benson said. “We actually completely broke our mill doing that, then rebuilt it and were finally able to get to the point where we’re getting a really nice crush on it.”

That allows more sugar extraction for more alcohol and a “maximum” flavor extraction, he said.

The mill was repaired for several hundred dollars, and now has the best presets to mill the various grains, Benson said.

The brewers have experimented with the grains, trying different flavor combinations with hops to balance the strong grain flavors.

The co-op hopes to can and distribute its other beers using its landrace grains — Red Russian wheat, Sonora wheat and Scots Bere barley.

The Spokane co-op now has seven owners, Benson said, including two farmer-owners, Scheuerman and Beth Robinette.

The cans present an opportunity to increase awareness of the co-op and sustainably use larger amounts of grain, Benson said.

Right now there aren’t plans to can any other beers made from grains beyond Scheuerman’s, Benson said.

“But that doesn’t mean that won’t change in the future, particularly if we can find regeneratively, organically-grown things,” he said.

The co-op opened in June 2018 and remains profitable, with year-to-year growth. Benson pointed to a particularly strong January and February, which are typically slower months. January was 30% up over last year, due to an increase in beer sales, and February is looking to be as good or better, he said.

“We’ve really been able to consistently source good products and create wonderful products,” he said.

Most ingredients for baking and brewing come from within a 150-mile radius around Spokane.

The Grain Shed bakery offers special Saturday evening dinners and will begin offering vegetarian dinners on Wednesdays, Benson said. The co-op is considering other wholesale baking opportunities as well, he said.

Benson said he is grateful to be able to report such successes for the business. The co-op employs 12 to 13 people and will have to hire more shortly, he said.

“Restaurants and breweries are big risks — it’s easy to fail,” he said. “We’ve just seen very steady, steady growth.”