Wall Street Journal:
It takes hop developers such as S.S. Steiner Inc. and Select
Botanicals Group about 10 years to cross-pollinate the beer-flavoring
plants to create proprietary varieties with unique flavors and aromas.
The results are new types including lemondrop and citra.
Only
about 10 hop varieties are central to many of today’s popular IPAs, and
more than 4,000 brewers are battling for them, says Wicked Weed co-owner
Luke Dickinson, who named the brewery after Henry VIII’s reported description of hops as a “wicked and pernicious weed.”...
In addition to the 10 high-demand hops, farmers have to balance
demand for more than 40 other varieties that are less popular but
equally as important to some beer recipes.
Production is
complicated by the time it takes to grow hops. The plants produce about
50% to 75% of their potential yield in the first year on average and
don’t mature fully until their second or third year. Meanwhile, new
breweries open daily. Those startups often are uncertain about growth
plans, making it risky for farmers to commit to long-term contracts with
them....
The Pacific Northwest produces about 40% of the global hop supply and a
majority of the kind of hops that craft brewers prefer. Until about
2012, farmers mostly grew alpha styles that are used to give established
brews such as Budweiser and Miller Lite their bitterness. Now more of
that production is done in Germany, according to Hop Growers of America,
a trade group.
We have to be reaching peak craft beer. I am tempted to plant some hops just for shits and giggles, though.
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