BeerHops.org

A survey of wholesale hops providers conducted by BeerHops.org has shown that, in most cases, buying hops in bulk represents an excellent savings opportunity for home brewers.

Our analysis below includes information collected from freshops.com, a wholesale purveyor of beer hops, compared to the most recent hops availability and pricing index from Monday January 28, 2008.

Not only are bulk hops cheaper on a per ounce basis, but we are also seeing that there are some additional varieties available that aren’t in stock at many of our retail sources such as Crystal, Sorachi Ace, Pacific Gem and Summit.

There is a bit of a catch in that freshops.com requires a minimum order of 12 ounces of hops and no less than 2 ounces of any one hop variety.  The maximum order is 16 ounces.  So, these deals are probably best suited for high volume home brewers or those that tend to brew very hoppy beers.

Wholesale vs. Retail Hop Comparison

The official Mr. Beer blog is reporting that they have hops back in stock for the first time since late December.

As many of you know MR.BEER® has been without hops since late December due to a worldwide hops shortage. The good news is we’ve recently received 5 of our original hops as well as 9 all-new hops — many that replace discontinued brands perfectly.

Although this is good news for Mr. Beer owners, there is a purchase limitation in place:

Until supplies increase hops will only be sold in conjunction with a recipe. Supplies of our pre-hopped malt extracts have not been effected by the hop shortage.

Mr. Beer is a proprietary kit brewing system and supplier of a variety of extracts that allow owners to produce over 200 styles of beer.

It was a volatile week for hops availability that included some positive and negative news for home brewers. Those that use pellet hops in their home brewing should be pleasantly surprised to see increases in availability and decreased cost in pellet hop varieties, while whole leaf hop aficionados are likely seeing the exact opposite trends.

Nine new whole leaf hop varieties and seven new pellet hop varities became available this week while one whole leaf hop variety, Simcoe, and five pellet hop varieties, Horizon, Newport, Pride of Ringwood, Sterling, Styrian Goldings, totally dropped off of the index.

The average price of whole leaf hops increased $1.72 to $4.07 while the average cost of pellet hops dropped $0.80 to $2.52.

Additionally, one of our hop sources has completely sold out of whole leaf hops for the moment.

Hops Pricing & Availability Index for January 28, 2008

 A genetically modified (GM) crop expert believes that the practice will gain acceptance in the beer making community in the future according to BeverageDaily.com

Dr Val Giddings, a leading independent US GM consultant, told BeverageDaily.com that the current use of biotech crops in global beer making was miniscule, mainly in the addition of rice.

He was keen to add though, that in his opinion, there could be no doubt that GM crop use in beer - even if still some way from practical application - is set to increase in the coming years.

One key issue expected to affect brewers in the coming year is the increasing costs of raw materials needed in making a variety of ales and lagers.

Could this help prevent future hop shortages like we are experiencing this year in the United States?  It is hard to know one way or the other.  However, genetically modified crops do often have lower net costs to produce over time and therefore could help make beer related crops, such as hops, much more cost effective to produce.

How do you feel about the potential use of GM techniques of grains and hops?

Several popular online home brewing supply retailers are instituting hop related policies related to the worldwide shortage. Here are a sampling we have come across recently.

From Williams Brewing’s website:

Due to the current hop shortage, we reserve the right to limit hop orders at our discretion. If you are buying hops, please make sure that at least 50% of your orders total dollar value is in things other than hops.

This is to make sure our loyal repeat customers who buy a wide range of ingredients from us can get hops from us throughout the year. Thank you for your understanding.

From Beer-Wine.com:

Due to the worldwide shortage of hops and grains we unfortunately will have to limit the purchase of these items until the 2008 fall harvest. We must restrict customers to a maximum of 4oz. total hops and a maximum of 15 lbs. total grain per customer per week based on availability. All hop prices are subject to change without prior notice. We ask that you be considerate of your fellow home brewers and thank you for your understanding.
What’s the bottom line? Certain grain and hop varieties are getting more expensive and a few varieties will run out faster than ever. Home brewers must prepare for the potential need to substitute different grains and hops, to replace varieties that currently give their beers a particular flavor.

Have you seen similar hops related policies popping up at your local home bre supply store or elsewhere? Let us know in the comments.

The Tucson Citizen reports on the impact of the 2008 hops shortage on Arizona’s brew pubs.  Part of their analysis includes  a forecast that it may be 3 years before the hop market returns to normal.

Brewers are dealing with a 10 percent to 15 percent shortfall in the worldwide supply of hops, largely caused by farmers cutting back on the crop and recent yields diminished by rain and drought. Prices have jumped as much as 10-fold and created severe shortages of popular varieties such as Cascade, Centennial and Chinook.

The shortages are expected to last through 2008, and some don’t expect the market to return to normal until 2011.

You can read our up-to-date hop pricing and availability index in our archives.

Note: Those hop varieties not listed in the index are unavailable at the retailers we monitor for our reporting.