“America’s smaller brewers — smaller meaning Boston Beer Company on down — produced 7.4 per cent of the beer sold domestically in 2013 and used 52 percent of the hops grown domestically.”
Yes, that trend has been around for a while, and might be increasing. Hopped up beers for sure.
Interesting. Not surprising though. All you’ve gotta do is taste a craft beer. Most BMC beers are below the threshold of noticing any hop presence IMO.
That’s a very interesting perspective on the situation of hop processing and the usual supply/demand issues at hand.
I see it as being cyclical though and not a linear issue as it’s a crop.
I do business with the nursery industry propagating landscape material and we go through supply/demand issues pertaining to certain varieties of plants.
When things are in short supply, demand will increase for other similar varieties creating a shortage and higher prices, then as supply gets built up in the previous varieties, things shift again.
The downside to all this is nature and climate work in their own ways at their own speed, one cannot simply make more, they have to propagate, nurture for a couple years and hope Mother Nature cooperates.
The other side of this is Sierra Nevada Pale Ale is a strongly-hopped beer compared to most styles of the world, and they ignited a firestorm of hopping beers far too much. It’s sort of a badge of honor: once you get past 100IBU, you have a huge range of 120IBU, 160IBU, 210IBU, and so on… and of course humans cannot taste more than 100IBU, so the numbers are all theoretical.
Hop fanaticism is rampant in American craft brewery. Do you see a wide market of British-style pub ales, doppelbock and lagers, or beer innovation across America? The only innovation you see is using a pound of hops, then dry hopping on two pounds, then running through Sam Calingione’s hop machine he shoves in-line with the beer tap. And sometimes fruit. America’s favorite clone style is the IPA, and the IIPA if we can get enough hops in there.
I love british bitters.
A friend and I are planning on brewing professionally and we have checked on hop availability, most of the popular varieties are already on contract at least 2 years out. Sure we could buy from a smaller supplier but pay out the wazoo for them.
Not arguing for or against the hop bomb craze in the craft beer world - what I’m saying is that it is not surprising that the craft beer world uses such a big slice of the hop pie, since BMC beers have zero hop presence.
What is new is not that American craft beer has lot of hops, but that it now uses the majority of hops grown in the US. It’s no wonder that the hop growers are catering to craft beer and homebrew.
For a while, I’ve been thinking that the explosion in microbreweries won’t last very long. I wonder if hop availability will be one of the reasons that the explosion slows down.
or, you know, don’t use the most popular varieties. just sayin.
The raw material supply is a concern to some. The hop growers can respond if they have lead time. When we drove out to the Yakima Valley after the Seattle NHC, I was somewhat shocked to see all of the trellis systems with no hops strung. If they see demand, they can plant more without investing in new trellis.
AFAIAC, SNPA is just right, not too much. and the concept of “too much” is totally subjective. If you don’t like the beers, don’t drink them. but don’t pass judgement on them based on your own prejudices.
Sometimes you have to. I’ve been hired by a new brewery to help them develop their recipes. They own an organic hop farm and plan to make all organic beer. Their business plan includes an imperial pale ale, IPA, and IIPA. Now, it’s hard enough to differentiate those styles already, but the only hops they plan to use are the ones they grow. OK, but that means Chinook, Magnum, and Fuggle only! I keep telling them they need to source some other hops or the beers won’t really be recognizable as what they intend them to be.
That was my other thought, as well. It’s not as if BMC are gonna start cranking out hoppy beers if the craft guys cut back on IIPAs. Hopefully the growers will be able to keep pace as the demand grows.
That does seem a little restrictive. but there has got to be lots of other varieties they could grow. and I gotta say, I feel for you there denny. I disagree with you on the value of Fuggles but I still don’t think I can imagine a Fuggles centered IIPA.
I do see what you mean by difficult to differentiate too. isn’t an Imperial Pale Ale just an IPA? Have you tried suggesting some other styles? seems like those hops would be good in kinda hopped up americanized versions of british styles (Imperial ESB?)
Worthy brewing in Bend makes a very nice IPA only using Oregon grown hops. Do you know that one?
Poor Denny. I was thinking the same thing Mort…Denny, here make us a good recipe with Magnum and Fuggles please.
At least they have some Chinook.
Sounds like they need to get some more varieties planted if they want to make beer from all their own hops.
I saw that CTZ is now available in organic…all you need is some Mt. Hood and you are good to go. ;D
Agreed on craft brewers needing to expand into lesser known varieties. The Simcoe Citra Amarillo crowd is getting large and demanding. I see a trend to sourcing local hops. Seems like quite a few regions are popping fop farms.
They used to grow Cascade, but they got wiped out by disease. Anything else would take at least a couple years to get a decent crop. They may source other hops, but they’re reluctant to do that and the organic varieties they can get are really limited. I’ve tried to talk to them about brewing other things, but it seems their business plan is centered on these styles. At this point, all I can do is help them make the best beer they can make with the limitations in place.
Nope, I don’t. Are they organic hops? The business plan for this brewery centers on high gravity, organic and estate grown as much as possible. Apparently, they have a distribution deal with a major grocery chain if they do that. They’ve determined (somehow) that to make money they need to hit a particular price point and can only do that with high gravity beers.
Yeah that’s a very limited hop selection for 3 fairly similar styles. Throw out the crappy Fuggles and you’re left with 2. 