HADLEY, Mass.

AT 8:30 one Monday evening, Christian Stanley pulled on his jacket. His 7-year-old daughter, who was reluctantly headed up to bed, asked, “Where are you going, Daddy?” His reply: “To the malt house.”

Since they founded Valley Malt in 2010, the malt house has become a little like a fourth child for Mr. Stanley, a mechanical engineer, and his wife and business partner, Andrea. It needs round-the-clock attention and even wakes them up occasionally with text messages on its progress.

On this evening, Mr. Stanley, 35, drove four blocks through his quiet residential neighborhood to a small garage crammed with equipment: a forklift, a grain auger, a Shop-Vac, two big sacks of wheat and a stainless-steel tank connected to a jumble of ductwork. He stripped off his jacket, pulled on a pair of rubber boots and opened the hinged top of his malt vessel, which looks something like a rocket ship. Grabbing a battered shovel, he leapt into the tank and began stirring 1,850 pounds of steamy New Hampshire wheat — a workout, but well worth the effort.

“Without malt,” he said, “there’d be no beer.”

As humble and jerry-built as the setup looks, this garage is on the cutting edge of the craft brewing movement. Driven by a growing awareness that the only thing local in most “local” beers is the water, microbrewers all over the country have begun using regional hops, fruits and honey. Now, many are taking the next logical step and snapping up local grains.