The Beer Famine of 2008
I'm worried...
Old Zen
By Karen Rouse
The Denver Post
At Stomp Them Grapes, the international shortage of beer hops has hit home.
In the Denver home-brewers supply store, signs taped to two freezers holding pouches of leaf and pellet hops "” the flower used to give bitterness, flavor and aroma to beer "” alert customers: "Due to hop shortage crisis, hops will only be sold in amounts needed to fill a recipe."
"We had to stop selling hops on the Internet," said Brian Carter, co-owner of Stomp Them Grapes, who limits customers to 4 ounces at a time. "Last week, people were trying to buy 100 ounces."
The shortage stems from a prior 10- to 12-year surplus that prompted hops farmers to reduce acreage, as well as hail and flooding in Europe, said Julia Herz, director of craft-beer marketing for the Brewers Association in Boulder.
"There is a 10 to 15 percent shortage," she said.
Craft brewers, which rely on hops to produce a wide range of flavors, are particularly susceptible, she said.
While major brewers have long-term contracts that lock in supplies and prices, industry experts say smaller microbrewers and consumers will feel more of the pinch.
"The prices are definitely going to go up," said Benj Steinman, publisher of New York-based Beer Marketer's Insights.
Boston Beer, the No. 1 craft brewer and maker of Samuel Adams, is looking at a 5 percent increase in retail prices, said Steinman.
"The hop world is in crisis right now," said Ralph Woodall, director of sales at Yakima, Wash.-based Hopunion LLC, which supplies hops to 1,200 craft brewers, brewpubs and home-brew supply stores in the United States and Canada.
On Monday, even as he scrambled to fill orders for breweries that had not contracted orders ahead of time, Woodall said he believes the beer industry will feel the pain for up to three years out.
Woodall said the U.S. and Germany produce about 75 percent of the world's hops.
He has seen Cascade hops, the most popular among craft brewers, jump from $4.10 per pound to about $12.35 per pound in two months.
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Noooooo!
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Guess I'll just have to make mead instead. (Cue honey shortage)
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Damn... just as I was getting back into homebrewing. I just made an awesome Pale Ale.
And.. Sam Adams is my favorite beer..
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Availability will be the only big issue. Most homebrewers and craft brew drinkers will pay the price increase. No one is suddenly going to switch to Bud because a bottle of Founders is an extra ten cents.
Semper Delectatio
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American Beer is more than just filtered water?
Aint nothing new about the world order..it's been playing since the day they put George Washington on a quarter
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That hasn't been an accurate snark comment for about the last 25 years.
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This would be more accurate if there was a rice shortage.
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I just got into homebrewing a few months ago when my brother sent me a brewing kit. I ran into this news when I stopped in at the local brew shop and noticed the sign stating that the hops shortage was going to cause prices to increase. After doing some reading at [url=http://byo.com/feature/1715.html]BYO[/ur] and listening to some podcasts at BasicBrewing.com I have to say I'm not terribly concerned. There are a lot of varieties of hops out there that haven't been impacted that we will be able to substitute for the more popular versions. If a certain recipe isn't going to work without Cascade, you can sub it with two or three different varieties. In the end you can always try to make a new recipe as well.
Impact on the homebrewing front will probably be slight. We'll see an increase in prices, but we can just start experimenting anyway. Craft breweries will probably be hurt by this because their contracts will likely run out before the hops start to show up again. I'm waiting to see how bad it will be for them. As far as the giant breweries go, it doesn't sound like they'll care that much. They use hops extract and they don't care where it comes from.
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Clearly, the only response is this news is to hoard the microbrews.
Of course, we'll need someone to be in charge of watching over the stash. I nominate myself. You guys can just drop off the beer on my doorstep. Trust me, I'll take good care of your tasty, tasty beer.
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It's a ploy from the french, to make you drink wine. Comment allez-Vous, Motherf&*ker!
I'm not really a girl. I just play one in video games.
o rly? I guess that does make sorta sense considering the amount of Miller Lite and Coors Lite consumed.
carry on.
Aint nothing new about the world order..it's been playing since the day they put George Washington on a quarter
Down in the Park with a friend called Five.
http://wumusicgroup.com/
I'm hoping that my strategic location near the Willamette Valley and the Cascades mountains will insulate me from the hops crunch. I saw a report on this back during Oktoberfest, but have heard nothing since. Bad news indeed, but I'm hoping that its just bad news for the states where good beer is a novelty, not a staple like it is here in Oregon.
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Wow, that sucks on the Cascade hops price hike. That's a pale ale and IPA staple.
Saying that American beer is poor is much akin to saying all movies suck based on the Uwe Boll filmography.
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Edited for clarity. I'm sure that's what GG meant, judging by the followup comment.
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American beer is fantastic if you don't drink any of the mass market friendly beers from the giant breweries. If you based a country's beer just on the big names you'd be doing a huge disservice. Bud Light is pretty bad, but honestly, Heinekein is some of the worst beer I've ever tasted.
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The issue is dire and, indeed, unprecedented. Obviously, the Congress needs to move fast to relieve the suffering of Americans. A stimulus package must be fast-tracked withouth the usual special-interest and red/blue bickering. An emergency bi-partisan bill Defend Underrepresented Mini Brewers should be hitting the House floor any minute now, so as to provide much needed subsidies, tax breaks, and re-investment incentives for hops grovers and beer consumers alike.
Or something like that.
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I'm not a lager fan almost as a rule, but there are quality American lagers too. Like Mumford said, you just don't get quality from the big megabreweries. Much like you're not going to get a quality burger from a McDonald's, Burger King, or Sonic you're not getting quality beer from Budmillcoors, for reasons dating back to Prohibition.
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My wife liked the man part monster I made. -Pharacon
Screw oil. We need to pull out of the mideast right now, and invade Germany. Those dwindling hop supplies must be secured.
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Beer (or ale or mead) was made for hundreds of years before the introduction of hops...Sounds like the perfect time to bring some gruit back to the marketplace!
O_o
Sonic rules.. its no In-n-Out but man its pretty good.
In general I'm not a fan of micro-brews.. "flavored" beers.. wheat crap.. or anything that attempts to pass itself off as Beer in this country.. if there are good American Beers then I've never had them.
I'll stick to what I know unless someone has something to suggest..
I'm pretty particular in what I drink Beer wise..
Also not a fan of Belgian crap.. or German beer.. yuck.
I like some Mexican brews.. and some of the Asian Beers.. other than that I stick to Irish and English beers.
Aint nothing new about the world order..it's been playing since the day they put George Washington on a quarter
Down in the Park with a friend called Five.
http://wumusicgroup.com/
I'm in college. I do my best to drink good beer, had Foster's and Fat Tire Ale last weekend, but unfortunately many weekends my only option is keystones. I refrain at those points.
*Legion* wrote:
Saturday I grilled 1/2 lb. patties made with organic beef, bleu cheese, herbs, and garlic. Served with sharp cheddar and on whole wheat kaiser roll buns. I think that might explain our beer taste differences.
And to go with those burgers we had Stone Mill Pale Ale, Rogue American Amber Ale, and Fort Collins Chocolate Stout.
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My wife liked the man part monster I made. -Pharacon
Can't say I've had many 'authentic' English or Irish beers. Guiness and Boddington are generally nasty by the time they make it across the water (and they're meant to be pulled from the keg - not the can). Mackeson XXX is pretty decent I guess. I like most of Sammy Smith's stuff, too.
Can't imagine why you couldn't find a good American stout, porter or brown if those types are to your liking...
That sounds horrible.. I mean.. you can taste Chocolate? wtf.
Aint nothing new about the world order..it's been playing since the day they put George Washington on a quarter
Down in the Park with a friend called Five.
http://wumusicgroup.com/
Yeah in general micro-brews that are flavored are pretty foul tasting to me.. can't say any of my Irish friends (I have several) disagree with me.. must be an American thing to want to flavor your beer with fruit and crap.. yuck.
Aint nothing new about the world order..it's been playing since the day they put George Washington on a quarter
Down in the Park with a friend called Five.
http://wumusicgroup.com/
Yeah I had Boddington's one night on a trip and it was a religious experience getting it fresh and how its exactly meant to be served.. to bad the food I ate sucked that night.. I guess you cant be good at two things..
Aint nothing new about the world order..it's been playing since the day they put George Washington on a quarter
Down in the Park with a friend called Five.
http://wumusicgroup.com/
This makes me want to weep openly because there is so much good beer out there.
So, what are the Irish and English beers that you do drink? I'm not going to try and convince you to start drinking other beers that would be similar, I'm just curious to see what it is that you do enjoy. I'm familiar with a lot of the popular American styles and have been starting to look into some of the popular styles in other countries.
As far as flavoring my beer goes, I'm not terribly interested in fruit. Right now I'm just working on getting familiar with the different hops and the different malts that I can use.
Worst signature ever.
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www.mumfordland.com
Oh yes, yes you can. And God said it was good.
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