I'll give you my own personal experience. We live in a drier part of the world in southern Alberta, and it's the first time on my farm I've grown over 100-bushel-an-acre barley. It all went for malt. Just to give you an idea, it's $6 a bushel; that's what it's locked in at.
I've done this for a number of years now. I have a program I use to pencil out my return on barley. After all my expenses, barley still competes very well with the wheats that I grow on my farm.