E-Malt.com News article: United States: Idaho hops farmers expect good yields from the increased acreage, craft brewers hope for stabilization of prices

Idaho is one of the few states that produce hops, the Idaho Statesman published on September, 15. But for the first time in more than a decade, new hop trellises were built in the region this spring and hop acreage statewide was increased by about 30 per cent – from 2,996 acres in 2007 to 3,885 in 2008, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates.

Meanwhile, farmers in Washington, the largest hop producing state, added an estimated 8,000 new acres of hop fields this year to take advantage of higher prices.

The industry was hit by the crisis in 2006, when worldwide hop production reached a historic low of about 113,000 acres. The major hop shortage of 2007 was the result of a series of events including bad weather in Europe, a fire at a large hop warehouse in Washington state, an increased demand in Europe and emerging markets like China, experts say,

Hops that had been selling for about $6 a pound now cost $20 or more for brewers who haven't contracted for a lower set price.

Since 2006, about 20,000 new acres of hop varieties have been planted worldwide, but prices remain high, said Ralph Olson, owner of Hop Union, a Yakima Wash.-based company that buys hops from farmers and then sells them to craft brewers all over the United States.

Hop farming is expensive. Twenty-foot tall trellises have to be built, and the hop vines need to be tied to wires that hang from the top. After the vines grow all summer, special combines are used to remove the vines from the top of the trellises.

The vines then are taken to a sorting facility, where workers load them into a machine that uses metal fingers to remove the hop flowers from the vines. Then the flowers are separated and moved by conveyer belts to massive bins, where they are heated and dried for 10 hours before they are moved again and packed in 200-pound bales.

While farmers get a benefit, the biggest hit goes to consumers and producers of craft beers - brewers who produce small batches of artisan beers with fuller and more unique flavour profiles than beers produced by industry giants like Anheuser-Busch or SABMiller.

Those companies are not affected that much because they have long-term contracts with hop growers or own their own hop fields, like the A/B-owned Elk Mountain Hop Farm in Bonners Ferry.

But the price of hops is a real issue for craft brewers.

Take Boise-based Sockeye Grill & Brewery, for instance. Sockeye is a small operation that generally contracted for hops year by year.

And like many craft breweries in the Pacific Northwest, hops play a major role in the flavours of Sockeye's beers, like the popular India Pale Ale, Dagger Falls IPA.

Head brewmaster Josh King said he was paying about $6 a pound for hops last year. The price of his contract this year is about $24 a pound. He now has a three-year contract, and the prices should drop in the final two years (he estimates about $19 a pound in 2009 and less in 2010).

King hopes that by the time his contract is up, hop prices will stabilize at a more reasonable amount.

High prices are not the only problem for small brewers, either. What could be a longer-lasting problem stems from the worldwide demand for "alpha" hops - the hop flowers that produce a high amount of the acids which provide bitterness to balance the sweet malt in beer.

Farmers get more money per pound, and higher yield per acre, for high alpha varieties like Chinook, Columbus and Zeus hops. The price is higher because brewers need fewer hops to provide bitterness to beer.

Aromatic hops, like the Kent Golding, Crystal and Cascade varieties, which provide the citrus and floral odours that deepen the complexity of a beer and are coveted by craft brewers, are less desirable for farmers like Obendorf because those vines don't yield as much per acre and are not as coveted on the world market.

Some varieties, like the Cascades or Simcoes, can be used for both, but they are hard to come by, King said.


16 September, 2008