The fact that two such substantial malting operations once faced each other across this quiet estuary gives some sense of how active the barley and brewing trade once was along this stretch of the Cork coast.

Malting is the process of partially germinating grain, usually barley, before drying it in a kiln to halt that germination, producing the malt used in brewing and distilling. The complex here has all the characteristic elements: a drying house of eighteen bays, four storeys tall and gable-ended; a probable steep house, where grain was soaked in water to begin germination, identified in a gabled addition at the western end of the south side; and a four-storey addition at the eastern end known locally as the side store. A kiln with attached furnace houses sits at the eastern end of the structure. The 1842 Ordnance Survey six-inch map labels the site simply as a Store, though by the 1933 revision it is recorded as a Malthouse, suggesting either a change of use or a belated recognition of its actual function. By the time of Griffith's Valuation in 1852, a John Halloran is listed as proprietor, and by 1867, according to Henry and Coughlan's Directory, ownership had passed to a William Bennett. A second malting complex associated with the village lies a short distance to the east, reinforcing just how industrially significant Ballynacorra once was as a processing centre for grain. The interiors of this particular complex have since been gutted, leaving the shell as the primary evidence of its former scale and layout.