Hop Shortage Still?

Are we still in the throws of a hop shortage? My local stores are all stocked up, be it at a little higher prices, and hops are more readily available on the internet and on eBay. So are we coming out of the hop recession or will it take another couple of years to get back to a plentiful supply granted the crops are good?

Well it is an agracultural crop. There are highs and lows. I would be willing to bet that you will see more hops hit the open market after next year. We do have to take into concideration that the craft brewing industry is on a 17% increase, I am not sure that the hop growing industry is on the same path?
Cheers
JJ

Its funny you should bring that up, for the past few month my LHBS only had a select grouping of hops, willimetta, super styrin, and crystal. Not a very good selection, but i go in this last weekend and they are fully stocked up, it was awesome. even uk golding plug hops. i stocked up and also made a super hopped IPA. it was almost like xmas I hope we will come out of this shortage soon.

Still at a bit of a shortage where I am, but it's also sky high. I'm not ready yet to pay $4 an ounce.

Both HBS's in DFW have been at $4/oz for everything for a while, and the hops are seriously shortchanged on AA at at least 1 place.

4 bucks an ounce isn't "horrible"... i walked into my LEAST favorite LHBS and saw 7.75 for an ounce of cascade plugs. I asked the owner if he was gettin 1 ounce hop plugs (I was assuming that since there were 2 plugs, and the pricing was 2x the normal, it HAD to be 2 ounces total) He laughed condescendingly and said there's no such thing as 1 ounce plugs. I laughed and said there's no such thing as one ounces of hops that is worth 8 bucks, put away all the stuff I was buying, and walked out. I hate that guy...

Most stuff is $3ish/ounce at my LHBS.

However, they have barely any hops available in pellet form...at least for what I needed:

Amarillo: had it
Centennial: were using a Columbus/Ahnatum(sp) blend instead
Hallertau: no varities available
Spalt: nope
Perle: nope

I got two ounces of Spalt for the Kolsch I made but they were only 2% aa !!

cclloyd said:

I got two ounces of Spalt for the Kolsch I made but they were only 2% aa !!

Click to expand...

Ouch!

(I grew up in Tampa )

I just hit the freshops website - Freshops - they have 17 varieties (whole hops only) and the most expensive are $2.25 an ounce. Looks like time to place an order.

Yep stock up on what you use all the time. You won't regret it. Though you may miss the freezer space.

Some stores are doing price reductions on hops because now they can again have increased sales because "there are hops" to sell while others keep the hop prices higher than ever and think that they will cash in while it is still possible but they fail to realize that when the customers find out they are gouging then those customers will NEVER return. In reality is that those Homebrew Shops are shooting themselves in the foot.

The reason I asked this is that the local "kinda" brew shop got tons more product in this last week. This is a gourmet foods and coffee store normally but have also been selling brewing ingredients and equipment since they started up, so they are not as great as the local dedicated shop but are a great resource for people who know what they are doing to get stuff. The staff knows nothing at all about the brewing, the guy owner of the store does the buying and the ladies just sell it. So they didn't think much of it in December 07 when I took 5 lbs. of pellet hops out the door for $1 an ouce in 20 varieties at one time. The guy only realized there was a shortage in January when it was way too late. They now got quite a bit more than they had last month and the prices are $2, $3, and $4 per ounce depending on what it is. I bought 4 ounces each of Liberty and Perle today for $2 an ounce, thought it was a decent deal. All of his higher alpha stuff was $4 an ounce, so that was a no-go. They even got some glacier leaf hops in, never seen them there before. I also checked on eBay and was not seeing the crazy prices being bid on or offered, just normal prices. So I thought we might be seeing the end of the great hop depression soon.