davehora.com

Yes, apparently hops - our little cone shaped friends, humulus lupulus, the heart and soul of your favorite IPA - are in short supply. If you’re not familiar with them, hops are the plant that lead to a beer’s bitterness and its grassy, citrusy, piney or earthy flavors. This is more of an issue for microbreweries as the hop profile in your favorite macrobrew is generally nonexistent.

The whole shortage is news to me, but even back October 2007 the impact was reported by Dan Richman on Seattle PI. Long story short, there’s been a huge reduction of hop-growing acreage since 1994, and now we see things like this happening: Hale’s Ales Brewery is “seeing prices for hops rise to $20 per pound from $3 per pound.” On top of the hops issue, ethanol’s popularity is bumping barley production down a notch or three, and malt prices are rising as well. As for the status of the hops situation, Dave Wells of Freshops wrote back in September 2007 that “It’s not going to get better soon, but will be likely just as bad, or worse, for the crops from 2008 and 2009, in other words, for beers brewed from now through 2010.”

But that’s all old news. The latest, and probably the most inspiring update in the hop shortage saga is Sam Adams’ Hop Sharing Program. From a reserve of 20,000 pounds, Sam Adams is offering hops at cost to microbrewers in need. If you find your brewery supply running low, and are in need of East Kent Goldings or Tettnanger hops, you can get up to 528 pounds of hops at the prices Sam Adams pays! I actually don’t know how much beer a quarter ton of hops can lead to, but Titan from the new American Gladiators can only bench 505, so it’s a fairly impressive amount.

This is really a great move on Sam Adams’ part; they’re willing to share their reserve with craft brewers without making any profit. And I guess if we do run out of hops, I’ve got a few more bottles of Bell’s Hopslam and two of Victory Hop Wallop on hand. Maybe I can hold out for awhile and then make a killing on eBay.