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Price Increases affecting beer making

You may have noticed increases in beer prices recently and some press regarding this. Two causes for the increase in the price of beer are in play currently. There has been a shortage of hops due to two bad hop harvest years as well as a major hop warehouse fire. The price of hops has gone up significantly (tripled rates are not unusual) over the past few months due to the shortage, greatly raising the cost of making beer for everyone. Some hops are unavailable for sale or are available in small quantities. While we have been able to continue brewing, there are some hops we cannot get and thus we cannot make certain beers unless we use different hops in them. Challenging but not the end of the world. Relief is hopefully around the corner as the 2007 hop harvest is being processed now and will be shipped out throughout December, January, and February. We will see what we can actually get when the harvest is out for sale. The other factor in price increases is the rising cost of malted barley, mostly due to a lowered supply of malt. The recent droughts have reduced yields in the fields and more farmers are moving to growing corn rather than barley because corn, with the increased demand for ethanol, has been become a more lucrative crop. We can still get all the grain we need, it is just more expensive.

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