John Barleycorn Must Die

I did quite a bit of walking in England this summer, and the brewer in me was keen to find some barley. Like many things in our convenience culture, I had no idea what my Maris Otter 2-row looked like before it was harvested, malted and sold to me in a sack at the home brew store. To my surprise, my folks knew exactly what barley looked like and that it was the 'whiskers' that differentiated it from wheat in appearance. So, below are a couple of snaps of wheat (left) and barley (right). Unfortunately, I don't know whether the barley pictured is 2-row (used for fine English & European beer) or 6-row (used for American beer and...ahem...animal feed). I also came across a traditional English folk song called "John Barleycorn" while looking for some references. The song anthropomorphises the barley harvest in the shape of a man called John Barleycorn, and the unpleasant things that are done to him in order to make beer. This acoustic version on YouTube by Traffic is worth a listen - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wml3V-maDeA