Whats up with this Citra Shortage?

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What a bummer. I stayed late at work to make sure I didn't miss the posting. Around 5:40 a coworker came by needing some help. I finished with him, got my Citra into the cart and by the time I entered my address information the Citra was gone. I got a lb. of Amaraillo for a friend, though. At least he will be happy.
 
I got 1# of Citra and #1 Amarillo, luckily. Looked like they didn't have much. Checked out fast on my phone while at my sister-in-laws birthday dinner, and got what I needed, Also got a pound of Belma and a pound of Centennial pellets too. I use Amarillo like it's water in my hoppy beers.

My buddy is giving me a pound of Amarillo he ordered on his order, since he knew I'd want it.


I think I'm done buying this harvest, other than the english stuff I can get all day long at the LHBS, and other different ones.

3/4# Amarillo Leaf
2# Amarillo Pellet
1# Belma Leaf
1# Belma Pellet
1# Chinook Leaf
1# Comet Leaf
2# Magnum Leaf
1# Cascade Leaf
1# Centennial Pellet


Will probably get some Simcoe leaf and maybe some Mosaic and call it quits if I feel tempted. Simcoe stays in stock at my LHBS all day long.

How much of the Citra and Amarillo was there originally?? I saw 140 or 150 of one I thought and was shocked how small it was.
 
Grr.. missed out :(

Sold out way faster than i would have thought.

Get used to it.

Most of the "hot" PNW hops are all contracted through 2014. Some might show up now and then on the spot market.

I saw literal tons of 2011 hops go in 5 mins or less on probrewer.com.

If there is a particular hop you want, be prepared to snipe it from hopsdirect.com or pre-order from labelpeelers.com. Certain varieties are available from yakimavalleyhops.com. Either that or be prepared to pay well over $3.00 an ounce from the LHBS.

Think about it. There are more breweries now than any time since the 1800s. There are even more in planning. They all want the "hot" hops. Homebrewers are at the end of the line. Plan your hop purchases in advance. I'm sorry but there is going to be a shortage for the foreseeable future.
 
nikobrew.com gets a lot of the hot hops too, but you pay for it with them. usually upwards of $30 a pound for SImcoe/Amarillo/Citra when it's in stock
 
I have a pre order in with Labelpeelers,but was hoping to get another shot of citra....oh well.

Maybe shouldn't post this:D but farmhouse is supposed to be releasing Amarillo pellets the 14th or 15th
 
whitehause said:
I have a pre order in with Labelpeelers,but was hoping to get another shot of citra....oh well.

Maybe shouldn't post this:D but farmhouse is supposed to be releasing Amarillo pellets the 14th or 15th

Those guys are great. They got simcoe cheaper this year and passed a lower price on to all of us.
 
Get used to it.
Either that or be prepared to pay well over $3.00 an ounce from the LHBS.

Think about it. There are more breweries now than any time since the 1800s. There are even more in planning. They all want the "hot" hops. Homebrewers are at the end of the line. Plan your hop purchases in advance. I'm sorry but there is going to be a shortage for the foreseeable future.

Crazy stuff when you think about it.
What happens when as homebrewers we have no availability to these "top bred" hops??

Will the hobby sacrifice because we wont have an ingredient that makes our favorite beer "that", or will that never happen and hop farms keep adjusting to the market?
 
Crazy stuff when you think about it.
What happens when as homebrewers we have no availability to these "top bred" hops??

Will the hobby sacrifice because we wont have an ingredient that makes our favorite beer "that", or will that never happen and hop farms keep adjusting to the market?

I think we homebrewers are an adaptive bunch. If we can't get some of these hard to find hops most of us are going to find a way to work around it and still make beers we enjoy.
 
Crazy stuff when you think about it.
What happens when as homebrewers we have no availability to these "top bred" hops??

Will the hobby sacrifice because we wont have an ingredient that makes our favorite beer "that", or will that never happen and hop farms keep adjusting to the market?


I doubt it will get that bad.. Seriously.. There's plenty of Citra out there, probably not enough for EVERYONE to have it in EVERY beer, and in some places there might be shortages, but I've been able to put Citra in my hand everytime I went to the LHBS for it.

Late in the season, it could be hard to find the fan favorites, but I can't see it getting so dire that the homebrew community is shut out.
 
Indeed. My LHBS runs out of good hops almost immediately. About an hour and a half away there's a very well stocked store. In July, they had an entire shelf of citra and amarillo leaf. The guy at the counter told me they have a really good relationship with hop union. The hops are out there, it's just a matter of who gets them.
 
For instance.. I just went to my LHBS to put together some recipes for the coming weeks.

Milled my grains up, got it all together, and I wanted to do a Citra Pale Ale. Roughly 2#'s of Citra leaf in the freezer, and plenty of 1oz packs of Citra pellet in the fridge..

He was out of FF7C's, go figure.

Just gotta search it out. I never knew there was a shortage of Citra, until I got on the internet.
 
Not having any of the new popular hops won't stop me from making beer. I made a ton of beer before these were even available. It seems like at lot of these were the substitutes we "got stuck with" during the 2008 shortage. It turns out they are great hops and people really want them now.
 
Got my lb of citra, pretty excited because its 100% new to me. As far as I know I haven't even had citra in a commercial brew, Smash IPA perhaps?
 
theveganbrewer said:
Citra is not a good bittering hop IMO, be careful with anything longer than 30 minutes.

I disagree, Citra works fine as a bittering hop. However, unless you're making a citra single hop IPA (which I've made and enjoyed), there's no reason to use it for bittering. Use a different neutral hop for bittering (I recommend ultra), and save the citra for flavor/aroma additions.
 
I disagree, Citra works fine as a bittering hop. However, unless you're making a citra single hop IPA (which I've made and enjoyed), there's no reason to use it for bittering. Use a different neutral hop for bittering (I recommend ultra), and save the citra for flavor/aroma additions.

Too harsh for me for bittering, but I was responding to a post about a citra SMaSH, so he wants to use it to bitter.
 
Got my lb of citra, pretty excited because its 100% new to me. As far as I know I haven't even had citra in a commercial brew, Smash IPA perhaps?

Citra is not a good bittering hop IMO, be careful with anything longer than 30 minutes.

I disagree, Citra works fine as a bittering hop. However, unless you're making a citra single hop IPA (which I've made and enjoyed), there's no reason to use it for bittering. Use a different neutral hop for bittering (I recommend ultra), and save the citra for flavor/aroma additions.

Too harsh for me for bittering, but I was responding to a post about a citra SMaSH, so he wants to use it to bitter.

For my house IPA, I use Magnum for bittering and Citra for late additions. It's a perfect combo IMO. Magnum produces a very "clean" bitterness that doesn't interfere with the flavor/aroma hops at all.
 
For my house IPA, I use Magnum for bittering and Citra for late additions. It's a perfect combo IMO. Magnum produces a very "clean" bitterness that doesn't interfere with the flavor/aroma hops at all.

I'm gona try the very same thing for my next Zombie Dust.
 
For my house IPA, I use Magnum for bittering and Citra for late additions. It's a perfect combo IMO. Magnum produces a very "clean" bitterness that doesn't interfere with the flavor/aroma hops at all.

Thanks for the tip, this is probably a better idea as I have lots of magnum sitting around.
 
I agree with the above about using magnum (I like to use warrior for the same reasons in my Citra IPA). However, I will say that I did a citra smash and used fwh'd the citra and it tasted wonderful. It's a lot more smooth using it like this, and you get more of the flavor and aroma imo. If you want to use it as a bittering hop, this is what I would do. :mug:
 
My favorite version of my Citra/Amarillo IPA we first wort with citra/amarillo and use a bit of warrior at 60min to get the ibus up there.
 
I checked my emails from last years order, it looks like last year I got my shipping confirmation 4 business days after I placed my order. I would guess we should be getting the shipping info either today or tomorrow.
 
Those guys are great. They got simcoe cheaper this year and passed a lower price on to all of us.

Thanks and to everyone else who mentioned these guys. Only place in stock I could find for leaf.

I got a 3oz Citra leaf order in with them, very reasonably priced and shipped. Wondering if its last year's Citra but even so.. got the min I need for recipes where its a signature finish. Still hoping Freshops put some up so didn't want to over order.. but also didn't want to get totally shut out.

I wonder how much of all this, besides the weather, is from Sierra Nevada going to a year round 12-pack sku on Torpedo.

I run into the trouble real brewers do, I brew all kinds of stuff but my friends want my Bangalore and its Citra finish. I can just brew other stuff but they will keep asking for the favorite..
 
I run into the trouble real brewers do, I brew all kinds of stuff but my friends want my Bangalore and its Citra finish. I can just brew other stuff but they will keep asking for the favorite..

Unless your friends are chipping in for the grain/hop bills, then i would brew what you want to brew. :tank:
 
I do.. I have two beers everyone wants.. the Bangalore (a modified torpedo clone) and the Janet's brown. The rest are all for me. As it happens.. I like both of those a lot too..

Funny you should mention that though.. I have had friends offer to chip in but I don't want them to become share holders..
 
I do.. I have two beers everyone wants.. the Bangalore (a modified torpedo clone) and the Janet's brown. The rest are all for me. As it happens.. I like both of those a lot too..

Funny you should mention that though.. I have had friends offer to chip in but I don't want them to become share holders..

Sounds like they need to start bringing you more Citra then.
 
I keep hearing this argument over and over in the past month...."but my house [insert beer style] uses [insert tough-to-procure hop]!!! Wahhhh!" If your only good beer is only made good by a certain hop, then I don't want to hear it. Adapt.
 
I keep hearing this argument over and over in the past month...."but my house [insert beer style] uses [insert tough-to-procure hop]!!! Wahhhh!" If your only good beer is only made good by a certain hop, then I don't want to hear it. Adapt.

He never said it's his only good beer. If you don't want to hear it, don't listen. No need to be a D-Bag about it.
 
Hopdirect package just arrived. So much smaller than the leaf order I had a month ago. What is up with all these people getting pissed about people liking certain hops?
 
Sure would be nice if they'd ship out their damn whole leaf. They told me on Monday that it'd be another 2 weeks. WTF? Didn't really get that, as the harvest has long been done. They said they were waiting on their distributor. Aren't they located just down the way from it?

The harvest has been done, but a lot of the hop processing is not done yet. I too was looking all around for Citra and couldn't find any. So I called a friend here at Hop Union. He said they have not even begun processing the bulk of Citra yet. This year they are trying to be done processing all of their hops by the new year - which is a new and very intense goal.

Steve
 
The other thing about hops that some in the industry are slow to grasp is that after the hop shortage, ALL the big brewers and retailers went to contracts. That way everyone is guaranteed stability, from the farm to the glass - as much as mother nature can provide anyway. If a business doesn't have a contract with a supplier, they may not get any of the harder to get hop varieties. It remains a boom/bust cycle though. after the hop shortage LOTS of acreage went into hops. This year I see corn planted in hop-trellissed (sp?) fields. There is currently an over-supply for the not-so-in-demand varieties.

One of the ways Hop Union is trying to fill the demand for the in-demand varieties is to make proprietary blends like Falconers Flight or Zythos. I just got some of these and am looking forward to trying them out.

Steve
 
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