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Home Brewers Find Ways Around Hop Shortage |
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Tuesday, 02 September 2008 |
Chris Arthur keeps a blue binder beside his cash register. It holds a four-page laminated list of hops. Arthur used to be able to order dozens of different kinds of hops for his Roanoke store, Blue Ridge Hydroponics and Home Brewing. Recently, he ordered 12 varieties and just three were actually available.
Arthur and his wife, Fran, had hoped to sell 80 pounds of the beer-making ingredient in their tiny Williamson Road store this year. But a combination of factors, including bad weather and a struggling economy, has driven prices so high in the past year that the Arthurs aren't sure they could afford the inventory anyway.
"It is a shortage situation as well as a cost increase situation," said Julia Herz, spokeswoman for the Brewers Association in Boulder, Colo. "Many factors all came into play in the global market to affect hops all at once."
As a result, retail stores and online suppliers like the Arthurs have imposed restrictions on the amount of hops a customer can buy at one time. It is a move that has driven home brewers in Roanoke and beyond to add a new hobby -- gardening -- to their list.
Already known as an adventurous bunch, these brewers are planting hop vines thousands of miles from the Pacific Northwest, where all commercial hops in the United States are grown.
That's not to say that hops cannot be grown in Virginia. But with the amount of attention they require, some wonder if it's worth it.
Ravaged by fire, flooding
In the decade or so before 2007, there was such a surplus in hops that farmers were partitioning off their acreage for other uses, Herz said. Global beer production was up 3.5 percent.
Then, in October 2006, a huge warehouse fire in Yakima, Wash., destroyed $3.5 million to $4 million worth of hops, or four percent of the nation's total yield. Overseas, a combination of droughts, flooding and hailstorms were wreaking havoc on crops, but the European dollar was soaring, allowing Europeans to "snatch up U.S. hops at a cost advantage," Herz said.
Ethanol production increased demand for corn, luring some American farmers away from hops and driving up the price of grain, another important ingredient in beer.
Though industrial brewers, who buy hops on the futures exchange, were somewhat protected from the shortage, microbreweries and home brewers were left in short supply.
Hop vines produces cone-shaped flowers, which are used during the brewing process to impart bitterness and aroma into the beer.
Different hops produce different results in the beer, so home brewers who like to experiment prefer to use a variety of hops.
Bryan Summerson, president of the Star City Brewers Guild in Roanoke, said hops he once bought for 99 cents per ounce have tripled in price. Some are even up to $7 or $8 per ounce, he said, while others are not available at all.
The Arthurs have chosen to limit hops sales to five ounces per customer per visit. Five ounces, however, is not enough for some of the hoppier beers, which have been growing in popularity over the years. Also at the Arthurs' store, customers must buy other beer-making ingredients to prove they are not buying hops so they can hoard them.
Chris Arthur said it doesn't feel good to restrict their customers, but they have no choice.
"We can't replace what we have quick enough and we really want our regular customers to be able to come in," he said.
Online beer-making supply sites have taken similar measures. For instance, The WeekEnd Brewer has a restriction of five ounces per week, and customers must buy malt as well.
"We may have to stretch our stock for 12 or more months," the Web site states. "This will affect every brewer in the world so please don't feel like we are picking on you."
Trying for homegrown
This spring, Summerson retreated to his Southwest Roanoke back yard with five scraggly, paper towel-wrapped hop roots called rhizomes.
He buried the Fuggles rhizome beside the shed. The other varieties -- Crystal, Chinook, Centennial and Cascade -- were planted in a square formation in the grass.
To his wife Jenny's dismay, he then constructed what she calls "football goals" made out of white PVC pipe, which stick out of the ground beside the shed. Each post is strung with twine from top to bottom so the vines can climb.
Fuggles took off, clawing its way to the roof of the shed and providing Summerson with a bag full of cones, the hops flowers. Chinook struggled to produce one handful. The rest are growing, albeit slowly, and haven't produced any flowers.
It commonly takes two to three years to get cones off a hops plant. Patrick Kennerly, who preceded Summerson as the brewers guild president, has a 5-year-old vine that produced well only one year.
"Unless you are able to get out there and water them every day, they get curled leaves and brown flowers," Kennerly said. "The only way to beat it is if you can just be right on top of it."
Virginia hops are susceptible to mildew and pests such as Japanese beetles.
Home brewers who get the hang of caring for their hops may eventually be able to produce enough to make a couple of batches of beer. Realistically, though, the home brewer who likes to experiment with different recipes and brews more than a dozen or so times per year will never be self-sufficient in the hops department.
"I brew too much," Kennerly said. "And there are probably 25 or 30 varieties that home brewers use routinely."
At best, these hobbyists can hope to supplement their hops needs with the cones they are able to produce in the back yard. But that hasn't stopped them from trying.
"Across the entire country, the demand for hop rhizomes is up," said Janis Gross of the American Home Brewers Association, a division of the Brewers Association in Boulder. "When they are available, they have been snapped up almost immediately."
Substitution may be key
Gross, a home brewer herself, has recently had to spend more time creating recipes for the association's journal, Zymurgy. She knows she can't invite readers to make a beer with unattainable ingredients.
So, until the hop supply makes its slow climb out of the basement, which some experts believe is starting to happen, home brewers will have to start experimenting even more. They can do that by subbing in different hop varieties in place of those that are not available.
Web sites such as MoreBeer and Austin Home Brew Supply have added substitution pages for customers who want to make a beer but can't find the specific hops.
Another option, Gross said, is trying out other herbs, spices or additives that provide a bittering effect in the beer. Historically, spruce tips were used when hops were not available. But hops also act as a preservative, so hops-free beers can be less stable.
The Star City Brewers Guild is embracing the challenge, Summerson said. For their quarterly competition in September, members are required to use some newer varieties of hops that are easier to obtain, such as Palisades or Glacier.
And even during this shortage, Summerson said, the guild has suffered no lack of interest. In fact, the 44-member club has actually grown over the past year.
"We've had a lot of new members in the past few months," he said. "Compared to buying beer in the store, even with hops the way they are, it still comes to like 39 cents per bottle."
Copyright (C) 2008 The Roanoke Times, Va.
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