The hop shortage

Yakima 728
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I have to say I'm pretty impressed with everyone's preparedness for the hop situation. I only started brewing last August so I have about 12 ounces of Galena, a little bit of Willamette, Saaz and a couple other noble hops. Not much though. Luckily, I've been doing only Belgian ales lately, which doesn't really require a lot of hops. Especially the lambics I'm planning on. Even now I'm not in a good financial position to buy hops, even for whatever deals are left out there, so I'm hoping that when Spring comes I can get some rhizomes and get a decent initial "crop" by this fall.
 
cubbies said:
My favorite hops are EKG, Fuggles, Mt Hood, Hallertau and Liberty. It is reasonably feasible that these could simply go away. I doubt it, but it is possible.

Me personally, I have gotten by fine. I rarely, if ever, use any of the big C's, so that hasn't been a problem for me, and the hops I do use, I have plenty of to last me a while. Hopefully when the time comes, I will be able to get some of my favorites. Particularly EKG. My beers simply would not be the same without EKG. IMO, there is no substitute.
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Hey Cubbies -

Sounds like we have the same hop tastes. I use EKG and Fuggles nearly every batch. To me, you gotta have em for those stouts!

I recently acquired about 3 pounds of mt. hoods, though...
I see you like them, so I thought you might be able to recommend some good recipes and/or styles?

Thanks!
 
Mustangj said:
What can you expect out of one vine the first season?
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That varies depending on the soil, light conditions, watering...and of course... who you ask. I've heard anywhere from expect nothing to reports of a full pound (dried) at the end of season one. Since this is my first attempt, I plan on killing them all like the rest of my plants. If I get any the first year I'll be happy.
 
Seabee John said:
I plan on killing them all like the rest of my plants. If I get any the first year I'll be happy.
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LOL.... I'm going to give it a try also. I Know some farmers and my dad is a master gardner so maybe they can help me out.
 
Me growing them is a lot of work, and I have a funky back yard. My parents, on the other hand, are avid gardeners. Humm. Maybe I know what Mothers' Day present is this year. Some Fuggles or something. :D
 
I often say that "plants usually survive in spite of the care they receive." :D

My hops are stuck in some nasty decomposed granite that I'm sure is exhausted by now. They're coming out in the next week so I can relocate them to better soil. Fortunately the rhizomes have multiplied. Unfortunately none of them are high alpha varieties. I would have some Centennial if a certain HBS hadn't shipped the rhizomes late in the week, meaning they sat in a UPS warehouse over a hot May weekend and died.
 
I just got finished reading this whole thread and went down to my LHBS to get some supplies for a pale ale (sort of turned into an IPA) I am brewing tomorrow. I called ahead to make sure they had the hops that I was looking for and they did so I proceeded down. Reading this thread I expected huge prices for poor hops. I paid a bit more but not that much... $2 an ounce for Bramling Cross and $2.50 for cascade. I mentioned this to the proprietor of the establishment and he said some places (particularly online) are experiencing tons of panic buying and that is why the prices have sharply curved up to $6+ on certain varieties.

Basically there is a shortage but it isn't that bad... no potato famine going on here. Prices will go down eventually and I am sure that this is going to cause a surplus year where people can go back to using ridiculous amounts of hops without a care. Markets are cyclical, there will be another shortage and there will be another surplus. Neither will heavily effect your beer unless you don't like to substitute... but then again I am a 22yr old fairly newbie and haven't gotten set in my ways.

Relax, have a homebrew and such.
 
Fender230 said:
I just got finished reading this whole thread and went down to my LHBS to get some supplies for a pale ale (sort of turned into an IPA) I am brewing tomorrow. I called ahead to make sure they had the hops that I was looking for and they did so I proceeded down. Reading this thread I expected huge prices for poor hops. I paid a bit more but not that much... $2 an ounce for Bramling Cross and $2.50 for cascade. I mentioned this to the proprietor of the establishment and he said some places (particularly online) are experiencing tons of panic buying and that is why the prices have sharply curved up to $6+ on certain varieties.

Basically there is a shortage but it isn't that bad... no potato famine going on here. Prices will go down eventually and I am sure that this is going to cause a surplus year where people can go back to using ridiculous amounts of hops without a care. Markets are cyclical, there will be another shortage and there will be another surplus. Neither will heavily effect your beer unless you don't like to substitute... but then again I am a 22yr old fairly newbie and haven't gotten set in my ways.

Relax, have a homebrew and such.
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Most feel that the cycle you speak of is a 2-3 year one.
Go the brewingnetwork and listen to the Sunday Session show with Ralph from HopUnion.

On another note, I'll paraphrase because I was drunk at the time. Some of us had the pleasure of speaking with Ray McNeil recently and he basically said the hop shortage was the reason he had to scale back his expansion plans on the order of 30%*.

*again I was drunk, but it was a significant %.
 
Yesterday i ordered 1lb of Cascade Leaf hops for $22.00 shipped to my door from www.morebeer.com. They have them $4.20 per 4oz. I just couldn't resist that kind of price for such a versatile hop.
 
Chello said:
Yesterday i ordered 1lb of Cascade Leaf hops for $22.00 shipped to my door from www.morebeer.com. They have them $4.20 per 4oz. I just couldn't resist that kind of price for such a versatile hop.
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That's a damn good price. Since the price has gone up to $6.00 shipped. =/
 
Your looking at the pellets. The whole leaf hops are still priced as $4.20 per 4oz but says Temp. out of stock....
 
I ordered 12oz of Cascade Leaf hops from More Beer and they called me today.
They will be out of stock for a week to ten days.
 
They shipped me 1.5 lbs of cascade yesterday and 1 lb of Willamette yesterday in Pellet form. $6 per 4 oz ... which seems like a pretty good deal these days
 
Kharz said:
They shipped me 1.5 lbs of cascade yesterday and 1 lb of Willamette yesterday in Pellet form. $6 per 4 oz ... which seems like a pretty good deal these days
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Ya I see how you are. They set you my hops. LOL .........J/K
 
Heh, in their defense ... I have spent over $1,500 there in the past 6 months :) I started this hobby last spring and have gotten a little obsessed with it ....

I personally love Morebeer for everything. Their communications, quality, and availability of stuff is amazing. About 95% of all of my business goes there ... and I live in Connecticut!!
 
DuPuma said:
Care to elaborate?
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Sure. HopsDirect (aka Puterbaugh Farms), one of this board's favorite hop vendors (because of their tendency to overstuff their bags) is out. As in, completely out, not selling any hops at all until this coming August. Freshops, considered to be one of the best proprietors of full-leaf hops, is nearly out, and only has 6 or 7 varieties to offer their customers. Most online HBS'es have tripled (or more) in the past 12 months, and still have very few varieties still available.

Past that, the only elaboration I can really provide is to just suggest that you re-read this thread in its entirety. :D

http://www.brewboard.com/index.php?showtopic=81791
Here's a little random info.

http://www.yoursforgoodfermentables.com/2008/01/ethanol-fallacy.html
And here's one that claims to debunk Ethanol-is-causing-farmers-to-not-grow-hops theory.

http://www.yoursforgoodfermentables.com/2008/01/response-to-ethanol-fallacy.html
And here's some dude's response....
 
Depends what you mean by irony. Are we talking "That's-dumb,-it-takes-just-as-much-energy-to-produce-as-it-creates" Ironic or are we talking "The-goverment-meddling-with-farm-subsidies-is-ruining-things-for-the-beer-community" Ironic?

Or a different kind of ironic I'm not catching?
 
TexLaw said:
It's the "it's-getting-harder-to-make-my-beer-because-some-dude-wants-to-make-alcohol-instead" sort of irony. :)
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Ah. The "You're-taking-land-from-producing-weak-alcohol-that-tastes-good-and-using-it-for-strong-alcohol-that-tastes-bad" Ironic. I got it now. ;)
 
I live in Washington and the Local Grown Hops are not in short supply

I bought 4 oz of chinnok for $2.40 I think that is a fair price
am I wrong ?

I am a truck parts salesman and I have a few customers that are hop growers
and they have all said that their crops have been almost record breaking

I understand that it might be different in other areas but when in doubt buy washington hops !!!
 
chriso said:
Sure. HopsDirect (aka Puterbaugh Farms), one of this board's favorite hop vendors (because of their tendency to overstuff their bags) is out. . . .
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Right, right, I got all that. And I've kept up with this thread everyday. I'm just curious as to why that guy thinks it will only get worse.

I think one possible explanation for why Freshops (my preferred online vendor), Direct Hops and others are out or basically out is because a lot of people are buying up bulk when they can now, seeing July-Nov. as nearly hopless months.

In the long run (e.g. next 2 years or so), as I understand it, supply will catch back up though prices may stay pretty high. Anyway, I was just curious as to why that guy above thought it would get worse, and if he meant long- or short term. Sorry, I probably should have explained all that in my reply!
 
My LHBS actually has a pretty good supply of hops...not every variety, but a good amount of the types they did have. I did buy hops for the next couple of beers that I am planning though.

All I can say, is that come march, I'm getting on the bandwagon and ordering rhizomes. Hopefully there is enough for everyone. I'm just glad that I have a big backyard, and a nice long sunny fence that I can train vines onto... :D
 
I transplanted all my hops today. You should see the Fuggles rhizome I dug up. It started out as a little 6" piece two years ago. Today this sucker was 3 feet long, 18" wide, and had at least one main root that was a good 10 feet long. There must have been 50 new rhizomes on it. Jeebus! :eek:
 
woo hoo! just scored 3 lbs of hops from hops direct. I put in an order the day before they posted that they were finished for the year... Nothing ever came but a message that they were not going to charge my card unless they could fill my order. That was a month ago.

Then today in my e-mail was a message that they were looking for confirmation that I still wanted my hops. I replied, they charged my card, and my shipment is going out this afternoon.

I'm getting:

1 lb Williamette
1 lb fuggles
1 lb Galena
all leaf hops.

I'm just wondering if it will be like my last shipment and come almost a 1.75 times as much as I ordered???

Oh BTW they didn't charge me shipping and the cost came it at $1.56 an oz.
 
Seabee John said:
I'm just wondering if it will be like my last shipment and come almost a 1.75 times as much as I ordered???
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I ordered 1lb of Magnums and that's what I got. No more no less. I don't know if it make a difference but I got pellets.
 
Mustangj said:
I ordered 1lb of Magnums and that's what I got. No more no less. I don't know if it make a difference but I got pellets.
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I got another e-mail from hopsdirect tonight... it's the tracking # for UPS. The weight listed is 6 pounds... fingers crossed:D
 
well I just heard something interesting. I just finished listening to BN's podcast on the shortage.....and it appears *ahem* orfy, this is all you guys' fault. ;)

Germany 42k acres dedicated for hop growing
America 23k acres



England........2k???? :drunk: Start pulling your weight guys!!! :D

All joking around aside, if you haven't listened to that podcast yet, I highly recommend it.
 
Chimone said:
well I just heard something interesting. I just finished listening to BN's podcast on the shortage.....and it appears *ahem* orfy, this is all you guys' fault. ;)

Germany 42k acres dedicated for hop growing
America 23k acres



England........2k???? :drunk: Start pulling your weight guys!!! :D

All joking around aside, if you haven't listened to that podcast yet, I highly recommend it.
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???Link please....
 

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